Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad   

Sight worth the wait

Hyderabad: It was a sight worth seeing. A sea of devotees welcomed over 12,000 idols of Lord Ganesh passing through the M.J Market crossroads, the converging point for idols coming from various directions, during the immersion procession here on Sunday.

Idols from the East, West and South zones of the city slowly converged at the junction and made their way on trucks that were decorated to outdo each other. Idols from Nampally, Goshamahal, Agapura, Begum Bazaar, Malakpet, Saidabad and Champapet areas joined the procession leading to the main immersion point of Tank Bund. Scores of young people danced to drumbeats while others were seen distributing ‘prasadam’ to onlookers from their trucks. Perched on a platform, members of the Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samiti announced the arrival of different idols.

Interestingly, a lot of anti-terrorism slogans were raised by the organisers to which there was enthusiastic response from the crowd. BJP State president Bandaru Dattatreya, Medak MP and TRS (Nationalist) president A. Narendra and former MP and chairman of Anti-Terrorist Front Mahendra Singh Bitta came to the site.

Their visit had stopped the procession for a good 20 minutes and police had a tough time controlling the crowd for a while. The Ganesh idol from Chappal Bazaar, which stood 30 feet tall, was being towed by over 20 people while other idols were being taken smoothly in vehicles.

Another attraction was the granite stone Ganesh of the Sri Trishul Ganesh Navyuak Sangh from Goshamahal. “The idol weighs about 100 kg and it took three months to create the idol,” said Thakur Vimal Singh, one of the participants in the procession.

Late in the evening, police resorted to mild lathicharge in the area when two groups got engaged in heated arguments. However, situation did not turn ugly with the intervention of police and elders.

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