Jamshedpur : Amidst fervour, one of the greatest festivals of the city Durga Puja ended with immersion of idols in the rivers all over.
Four days of revelry and merriment came to a happy end. Hundreds of devotees, including the men women joined hands to say ‘Asche bochor abar hobe’ (See you next year).
Steel city witnessed peaceful immersion of idols at 12 rivers ghats. In all 295 idols were immersed on a day which was incident free barring two minor skirmishes at Sakchi and Mongo. The Subernarekha river ghats witnessed maximum number of immersions (123 idols).
Police officials said that no untoward incidents have been reported. There was adequate police deployment in the areas and things move smoothly.
Law and order machinery was pressed into service with full speed to ensure peaceful conduct of the festival, with additional police force being deployed at several strategic locations.
About 371 magistrates and more than 400 police officials across 11 blocks and 33 police stations in the district were deployed.
Meanwhile, two groups of puja committees�Govindpur Ram Mandir puja samity and Govindpur bazaar puja samity members had a scuffle over dhakis during the immersion ceremony.
The Rammandir puja samity members alleged the bazaar samity members of taking away their dhakis while the opposite faction claimed that they had hired the dhakis.
A panel has been constituted by the district administration for judging pandals and idols for annual puja awards.
Tight security arrangements were made at the river banks of Kharkai and Subarnarekha launches were kept ready to rescue people in case of emergencies, the police said.
In the morning, married women smeared the goddess and her children with red vermilion and offered sweets and prayed for the well-being of their families and long lives of their husbands.
People were seen standing in long queues in front of the pandals for their turn for darshan of the Goddess. Huge rush of devotees was seen at the pandals of Jay Ram Sporting Club in Adityapur and Thakur Pyara Singh and Dharundhar Singh in Kashidih.
Various puja venues across the city, including the famous ones in Adityapur and Kashidih saw a large number of people gathering to seek the blessings of the goddess this morning. An adequate number of policemen were deployed across the city to streamline the rush of devotees who were headed towards river banks to immerse the idols.
Meanwhile General secretary of the JKDPS Rambabu Singh cited helplessness not only over cleaning of river ghats after immersion but also on puja committees adhering to their suggestion of using environment friendly articles on idols.
�We had asked all the license holder puja committee members representative to opt for environment friendly items so that water bodies is not polluted during immersion. We had also requested the district administration for arranging cleaning of ghats after immersion.
It is now the job of the administration to monitor and ensure that puja committees follow the norms. We are not a regulatory body,� said the secretary.
However, an official when queried over river ghats strewn wastes said that they would be issuing directive to civic bodies of Jusco and Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC) to arrange for cleaning of the ghats at the earliest.
On the other hand the Ram Mandir Ravan Dahan Samity in Sonari performed rituals of Ravaan Dahan. This year the Ravan was 60 ft high and viewers enjoyed the legend of good winning over evil once again.
