‘Nagar kirtan’ taken out with religious fervour

Tribune News Service

Jammu, January 5

Sikhs organised a colourful “nagar kirtan” (religious procession) in the city ahead of Guru Gobind Singh’s birth anniversary today.

The most important and major festival of the community, Prakash Utsav (birth anniversary) of Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Sikh Guru and founder of the Khalsa Panth, will be celebrated on Wednesday.

The District Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee of Jammu today organised a colourful “nagar kirtan”, which started from Bibi Chand Kour Gurdwara Sahib and passed through Samadian Road-Vinayak Chowk-Gumat crossing-Dogra Chow-Hotel Asia-Green Belt-Gandhi Nagar Hospital road-Gole Market- Shivaji Chowk-Khalsa Chowk and concluded at Gurdwara Sri Singh Sabha, Nanak Nagar, Jammu. The procession started at 10 am and concluded at 5pm.

More than 10,000 devotees took part in the procession. “Palki Sahib” led the procession in which Guru Granth Sahib was carried in a beautifully decorated vehicle along with “Nishaan Sahibs” (religious flags).

The procession was marked by rendering of shabad kirtan (holy hymns) by different jathas of men, women and children. Besides that Panj Pyaras (five beloved ones) in their traditional attire were the centre of attraction all along the procession.

The major attraction of the procession was the display of “gatka”, a Sikh martial art, and other breathtaking sword exercises.

Besides this, many types of presentation were held in which camel and horse riders were decorated in traditional Khalsa uniforms with Ranjit Nagara (war drum) followed by children from various schools.

Meanwhile, despite notifying public of the traffic diversions in the city on the occasion of the “nagar kirtan”, the Traffic Department failed to manage the traffic in the city. Hundreds of vehicles remained standard on roads in Jammu throughout the day.

General Public suffered a lot due to the absence of any traffic plan by the Traffic Department for the religious procession in the city.