Jagannath Rath yatra in Ahmedabad ends peacefully

Ahmedabad, June 27 (UNI) The 129th annual Rath Yatra of Lord Jagannath, his elder brother Lord Balaram (Balbhadra) and their sister Shubhadra today ended here peacefully.

The yatra which had been flagged off by Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the morning, moved on a 25 km route through the city and returned to the temple this evening.

The procession went off incident-free, police sources said.

The Chief Minister congratulated the people for the smooth conduct of the Yatra and Minister of state for Home Amit Shah complimented the security forces for maintaining law and order during the festivities.

The BJP state unit claimed that the incident-free conduct of the Rath Yatra confirms that Gujarat continues to be a peaceful state.

Tight security measures had been taken to ensure peace during the yatra as it passed through communally-sensitive walled city areas.

About 20,000 security personnel of the Gujarat police, State Reserve Police, Rapid Action Force, Central Reserve Police Force, and Border wing jawans have been deployed along the 15-km procession route. Black commandos had escorted the Raths.

According to Additional Commissioner of Police (Special Branch) C R Parmar the entire Jagannath Temple complex had been given a castle-like security with the setting up of electronic gadgets like the close circuit televisions (CCT), metal detectors and video camera.

UNI MP/MMG KU ARB KN2052