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Rituals began on Monday for the Bahuda Rath Yatra (Return Car Festival) from Gundicha Temple to Jagannath Temple in Puri, which marks the end of the nine-day sojourn of Lord Jagannath and his siblings, Goddess Subhadra and Lord Balabhadra.
The deities return to Sri Mandir from Sri Gundicha temple in three different chariots pulled by devotees. The Pahandi rituals began this morning for Lord Balabhadra, followed by those for Devi Subhadra and for Lord Jagannath. A large number of devotees gathered in Puri to witness and take part in the Bahuda Yatra. Meanwhile, security was heightened in Puri ahead of the festivities at Puri. "Security arrangements have also been made for Bahuda Yatra... Today after 9 days, Lord Jagannath and Goddess Subhadra will return to their main temple. Adequate security arrangements have been made. Crowd control, dragging of chariot...in addition to that traffic and parking arrangements have been made...we have two integrated control rooms...," Puri Supreintendent of Police Pinak Mishra said. Further speaking on crowd control by the police, Odisha Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Sanjay Kumar said, "With the blessings of god, all our arrangements are in place. The police force, police personnel, officers, everybody has taken their position. Mangalarti is going on...All the arrangements like CCTV, force deployment, traffic clearance, crowd control, and quadrant control, are in place, we have checked it. We have done rehearsals also. So today we are not anticipating any problem..." On the deployment of security forces for the Yatra, Kumar said, "180 platoon forces have been deployed there. Armed police forces have been deployed here. Besides three companies of RAF, two companies of CRPF have been deployed..." (ANI)
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