A large number of devotees offered puja to the Sun God at ghats along various rivers and other waterbodies across West Bengal on Monday, the second day of the Chhath festival. Devotees reached the ghats at the crack of dawn to the accompaniment of drum beats and offered puja in the water adjacent to the bank.
People burst firecrackers and played loud music in some places. A Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) official said devotees offered puja on river banks at seven ghats along the Hooghly from 4 am to 6 am in the city. The devotees also offered puja in 50 waterbodies where temporary ghats were built by the KMC.
Like on Sunday, not a single devotee was spotted at Rabindra Sarobar and Subhas Sarobar lakes in south and north Kolkata respectively as over 300 police personnel manned the gates of the two waterbodies. In 2009, a section of Chhath devotees barged into the two lakes violating a National Green Tribunal order not to use the water for the rituals.
The sound of firecrackers was heard in areas like Tollygunje, Naktala, Patuli, Bhawanipore, Chetla, Beleghata, Cossipore and Narkeldanga of Kolkata as it was on Sunday, environmentalists claimed. A WBPCB official said the air quality across the city remained at a 'satisfactory' level and no major case of sound violation has been received in the control room. Besides Kolkata, the Chhat Puja was also celebrated in North 24 Parganas, Paschim Bardhaman, Nadia, Jalpaiguri and several other districts in the state.
(With PTI inputs)
