Tens of thousands of Hindu pilgrims and holy men washed away their sins with a religious dip on Saturday, on the first main bathing day of India’s Kumbh Mela festival.

This year, Organisers had increased safety measures in a bid to avoid a repeat of a deadly stampede at the same venue that happened 12 years ago, and said the mass bathe had so far passed without major incident.

“No, nothing like that, it all went well,” K. Moghe, the district information officer for Nashik in India’s western Maharashtra state, told AFP.

 

 

Kumbh Mela is known for the celebration of faith in which Hindus bathe in a sacred river, which is held every third year and is rotated between four holy sites.

Kumbh Mela takes place at Nashik every 12 years and although it isn’t on the same scale as the editions on the Ganges at Haridwar and the Saraswati at Allahabad, it still draws millions of pilgrims.

 

In 2003, 39 pilgrims were died when the religious festival was last held on the banks of the Godavari River in Nashik, which is around 160 km from Mumbai.

As per the records, it was believed that the crush triggered when a sadhu,or holy man, threw coins into a crowd of pilgrims who were waiting for their turn to bathe in the holy water.

When the coins were thrown they scrambled to gather them, resulting in dozens of people suffocating, according to reports at the time.

Among the four venues. Nashik is unique because it has two main bathing sites, the River Godavari in Nashik and the nearby Trimbakeshwar temple ghat, stretching the emergency services across a wide area.

For this year, in Kumbh Mela festival the officials has changed the routes to the ghats to avoid steep slopes while a massive police presence of around 20,000 officers ensured little overcrowding and first aid workers stood ready.

It is stated that dreadlocked sadhus naked and with their faces painted, were first to bathe, entering the water at Trimbakeshwar shortly before 4am local time.Other sects quickly followed, shedding their orange robes and splashing joyously in the ghat before being moved on hastily by police to make way for the next wave of devotees.

According to the sources, it is estimated that between eight and ten million pilgrims are expected to attend the two-month-long Hindu festival this year. There are two main bathing dates left, on September 13 and September 18. — Text by AFP