1:48 pm
Jack
Photo Description : City goes into frenzy, roads leading to Hussainsagar packed
The whole city heaved a sigh of relief on Sunday, as
replicas of the Elephant God were immersed in thousands at various
points of the city without any major incident, as feared in the backdrop
of the recent bomb blasts at Delhi.
The centralised
immersion procession was late by hours to arrive at Tank Bund, partly
due to the delay of smaller processions which were to join it, and
partly due to the halt for the peaceful conduct of noon prayers at the
Mecca Masjid. Power hiccups and dearth of vehicles and cranes at the
pandals worsened the situation.
As a result, only
about 3,000 idols - a fraction of the 40,000-odd idols - were immersed
by 8 p.m., as informed by the Police Commissioner at a press conference.
Three streams of major processions joined the
centralised one, one from Malakpet, another from Nagulchinta and the
third from western part of Hyderabad via Mehdipatnam. These three
streams headed towards Necklace road and Tank Bund, while the fourth
stream reached Tank Bund from the Secunderabad side.
Banners
cutting across organisations and political parties were tied all over
the city, inviting idols from various locations for immersion. Temporary
platforms were erected at locations along the procession routes such as
Dilsukhnagar, Charminar, Mojamjahi market and several other places,
with leaders and god-men climbing atop to deliver speeches.
The
major immersion point at Hussainsagar saw holiday revellers making a
beeline to the site right since 3 p.m. Undaunted by the fear of terror
attacks, people arrived in droves, and by late in the evening, numbers
swelled to unmanageable proportions. Police had to go about instructing
people to move to the other side of the road and make space for
processions towards the lake side.
Due to iron
barricades erected on the road dividers, people could not jump over to
the other side to escape being run into. They had to take a detour, and
in the jostling, quite a few children were separated from parents, about
whom announcements were made on the public address system. The unruly
crowd gave pickpocketeers and miscreants harassing women a field day.
As
huge trolleys that were weighed down with mammoth idols began lumbering
towards NTR Marg and Tank Bund late in the evening, the crowds went
into an ecstasy, shouting slogans of ‘Ganpathi Bappa Moria' and dancing
frenziedly to the ubiquitous drumbeats. Onlookers jostled and climbed
one over the other on both sides of the barricades to have a glimpse of
the idols. In response, those accompanying the idols on the
flower-bedecked vehicles tossed ‘Prasadam' packets and water sachets
into the crowds.
Water and ‘prasadam' were
distributed also at pandals as well as all along the procession routes,
to quench the thirst of those dancing all the way down.
The
immersion point itself wore a carnivalesque look, with hundreds of
petty vendors swarming the environs aiming to make a quick buck. It was a
food festival of sorts, with children and older people alike munching
away on all varieties of goodies. Women and children were attired in
their best, and the smell of marigold and chrysanthemum was thick in the
air.
Sale of trinkets too was heavy. The whole area
between the Khairathabad Flyover, Tank Bund, Necklace Road and NTR Marg
reverberated with the rasping calls of ‘Pungi's sold in tens of
thousands.
Being a hot day, water sachets
distributed by the Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board were
consumed in lakhs. GHMC set up mobile clinics to offer emergency medical
assistance.
