Puri braces for Bahuda Yatra with tight security

Puri: Security was heightened in Odisha’s Puri as the seaside town prepared for Lord Jagannath’s Bahuda Yatra, or the return car festival, Friday.

The Bahuda Yatra marks the second phase of the annual Rath Yatra, during which Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Goddess Subhadra return to the 12th-century Jagannath Temple from the Gundicha Temple, about 2.6 km away.

“We have a multi-layered security arrangement for the festival as the number of devotees is increasing by the day. Our security and crowd management arrangements remain similar to the bandobast made during the Rath Yatra July 16,” ADG Soumendra Priyadarshi said.

Security has been further strengthened following Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi’s directive to place greater emphasis on scientific crowd management and real-time information sharing with devotees after the crowd surge during the Rath Yatra left two devotees dead and several others injured, officials said.

Reviewing the preparations Wednesday, the chief minister directed the police to monitor crowd density continuously and integrate feeds from CCTV cameras with the Integrated Command and Control System to enable a swift response to any untoward situation.

He also appealed to devotees to strictly adhere to the guidelines issued by the administration and the police.

Besides the deployment of over 13,000 personnel, including Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) personnel, more than 400 AI-enabled CCTV cameras have been installed across the town for real-time surveillance and crowd monitoring.

“We are taking all possible measures to ensure the festival concludes smoothly,” DGP YB Khurania said.

According to the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA), ‘Pahandi’ — the ceremonial procession of the deities to the chariots — is scheduled to begin at noon.

“If the rituals are completed ahead of schedule by the grace of the Lord, the ‘Pahandi’ may commence earlier, as it did last year,” SJTA Chief Administrator Arabinda Padhee said.

Following the ‘Pahandi’, Puri’s titular king, Gajapati Maharaja Dibyasingha Deb, will perform the ceremonial ‘Chhera Pahanra’ (sweeping of the chariots), after which devotees will pull the three chariots towards the Jagannath Temple.

Meanwhile, the IMD has forecast cloudy skies over Puri, with humidity expected to remain between 80 and 90 per cent and the temperature hovering around 29-30 degrees Celsius.