Ignoring Covid surge: Thousands of Hindus take part in Magh Mela

KOLKATA: Hundreds of thousands of Hindu worshippers have gathered on the banks of India’s Ganges river for a holy dip despite a 30-fold rise in coronavirus cases in the past month, foreign media reported on Friday.

Hindus believe a bath in the frigid waters of the holy river during the Makar Sankranti or Magh festival, observed every year on January 14, washes away sins and frees them from the cycle of death and rebirth.

On Friday, a large number of devotees were taking a dip in the river in the eastern state of West Bengal, which is reporting the most number of cases in the country after Maharashtra state in the west. Officials had said they expected about three million people to attend the festival’s climax on Sagar Island, where the Ganges meets the Bay of Bengal.