Magh Mela 2022: Plea before Allahabad High Court to limit devotee participation in view of COVID

In view of the rising coronavirus cases, a plea has been moved before the Allahabad High Court to restrict the number of devotees who will take dip in river Ganga during the upcpoming the Prayagraj Magh Mela this year. .The plea moved by one Utkarsh Mishra said that religious congregations in the past two years were found responsible for spreading the deadly virus all across the country. The plea sought a direction from the Court to limit the participation in the Mela.The plea said that only seers of ‘Akharas’ should be allowed to take the holy dip on the dates of the Shahi Snan to prevent a huge turnout of devotees, as anticipated on those auspicious dates. "It is pertinent to mention here that the major footfall of the devotees in the Mela takes place on these auspicious dates. ...Because allowing the seers of ‘Akharas’ to take holy dip on the dates of Shahi Snan will prevent the huge turn up of the devotees anticipated on these auspicious dates," the plea said.It was also prayed that RT-PCR tests should be made compulsory for the visiting devotees on arrival..It was further submitted that the Kumbh mela of Haridwar, held during the peak of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a huge number of infections and thus was voluntarily called off by the seers of various ‘Akharas’.The devotees who returned to their native places after visting the Kumbh were found to be super-spreaders, the plea stated.."Holding of such a large scale event in the wake of Covid-19 third wave is putting the residents of Prayagraj as well as Uttar Pradesh in unnecessary risk and the Magh Mela event is of great religious importance and all the preparations i.e. setting up of camps, electricity, water and sanitation has already been done and thus calling off the religious event is not desirable at this high time," it was submitted. .The plea has been filed through advocates Prateek Mishra, Sidharth Baghel and Abhishek Shukla.