Nearly four lakh people took the holy dip at the confluence of river Hooghly and Bay of Bengal during the Ganga Sagar Mela on the occasion of Makar Sankranti on Monday.
The mela that draws devotes from all over the country is held every year on the Sagar Island in the Sunderbans archipelago of the State’s South 24 Pargans district.
According to Narayan Swarup Nigam, District Magistrate of the State’s South 24 Parganas district, the number of people who visited the island during the mela over the past few days has reached a million. He said that the festival drew to a close with no untoward incident being reported.
The State administration has made elaborate security arrangements for the mela. More than 30 CCTV cameras were installed and a similar number of watchtowers erected in and around the Kapil Muni temple on the island’s bank. More than 20 people were arrested for petty crimes in the course of mela.
Several Ministers of the Trinamool Congress government including the State Minister for Public Health Engineering Subrata Mukherjee were present in the island to supervise arrangements.
