Kumbh: Sect Announces End After Many Seers Test Covid Positive

Sadhus take a dip in the Ganga river during the first 'Shahi Snan' at the "Kumbh Mela" in Haridwar on March 11, 2021

Niranjani Akhada, one of the 13 ‘akhadas’ of seers participating in the Haridwar Kumbh, on April 15 decided to opt out of the event because of the deteriorating COVID-19 situation in the state.

“The main Shahi Snan held on the occasion of Mesh Sankranti on April 14 is over. Many in our ‘akhada’ are showing COVID-19 symptoms. So, for us the Kumbh Mela is over,” Niranjani Akhada secretary Ravindra Puri said.

Rising cases of coronavirus infection in Uttarakhand have spared none with several seers testing positive. President of the Akhil Bharatiya Akhada Parishad Narendra Giri is down with COVID and recuperating at AIIMS-Rishikesh while Mahamandaleshwar of Maha Nirwani Akhada from Madhya Pradesh Swami Kapil Dev, who was suffering from COVID-19, died at a private hospital on April 13.

Meanwhile, Uttarakhand on April 15 recorded its highest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases since the outbreak of the pandemic with 2,220 people testing positive.

The ongoing Kumbh Mela in Haridwar has been shortened this year to just one month from April 1 to 30 due to coronavirus pandemic.

In normal circumstances, the event, which is held once in 12 years, goes on for nearly four months, from mid-January to April.

Police said 650,000 devotees had bathed in the Ganga river since Wednesday morning and people were being fined for failing to observe social distancing in some areas.

Infections in Haridwar have already jumped to more than 500 a day since Kumbh Mela officially began this month, from just 25-30 last month. Hotels have become isolation shelters for those found infected by a team of 300 medical staff running 40,000 random tests daily.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, however, has refused to call off the festival that is scheduled to last the whole month, possibly fearing a backlash from religious leaders in the Hindu-majority country.

“It is already a super-spreader because there is no space to test hundreds of thousands in a crammed city and the government neither has the facilities nor the manpower,” said a senior official in Uttarakhand state, where Haridwar is located.

Devout Hindus believe bathing in the holy Ganges absolves people of sins, and during the Kumbh Mela, it brings salvation from the cycle of life and death.