Ahmedabad, July 12
The 125th rathyatra started under tight security arrangement from the Jagannath temple in the Jamalpur area of the city this morning in a festive mood with devotees singing bhajan and beating drums. The yatra, flagged off by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi at 7 a.m., reached the Radhakrishan temple in Saraspur at 12.30 pm where it had a halt for an hour.
The 1.5 km procession following the chariots of Lord Jagannath, Balbhadra and Subhadra and led by decorated elephants, traversed a distance of 35 km before returning to the Jamalpur temple.
The chariots were followed by trucks, bhajan mandalis and akharas singing hymns to the drum beats. Devotees recited “Jai Kanhaiya lal ki” all along the route even as youths demonstrated martial arts with lathis.
At Saraspur, “puri, bataka nu shaak and ladoos” were served to the devotees as per the customary practice.
Commando protection for the chariots had been provided and nearly 5,000 policemen and over 80 companies of state and paramilitary forces deployed along the yatra route to prevent any untoward incident.
In Bhavnagar, where a huge cache of firearms and weapons was seized recently, elaborate security arrangements were made as the rathyatra began from the Bhagvan Mahadevshankar temple at Subhashnagar this morning.
Bomb disposal squads, sniffer dogs, around 5,000 policemen and over 80 companies of the state reserve police, the Centre Reserve Police Force, the Rapid Action Force and the Border Security Force were deployed along the entire route of the yatra.
The rathyatra took about 14 hours before concluding at its starting point, the Jagnnath temple at
Jamalpur. PTI
