Third wave of COVID-19: IMA urges Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Dhami to cancel Kanwar Yatra

Dehradun, July 13: The Indian Medical Association's (IMA) Uttarakhand has written to Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami urging the government not to allow the Kanwar Yatra this year in order to control the "possible eruption of the third wave of COVID-19".

In a letter, the IMA's state secretary Amit Khanna requested him to cancel the annual yatra for public safety.

"We request you to disallow the proposed Kanwar Yatra in July-August, 2021, as the third wave of Covid pandemic is ready to knock on the doors of this country according to several specialists," Khanna said in the letter.

What is Kanwar Yatra?

It can be seen that Kanwar Yatra begins in late July with the onset of the Hindu month of Shravan and goes on till early August covering a period of nearly a fortnight.

Scores of devotees of Lord Shiva - commonly known as Kanwariyas -mainly from Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh embark on Kanwar Yatra every year to collect holy waters of the Ganga river in Uttarakhand's Haridwar for "Jalabhishek" in Lord Shiva temples.

In his latter, Khanna said that people went off guard after the first wave and consequently lost several of their relatives in the fatal second wave. The IMA Secretary asked Dhami to deliberate on these things and "take a positive decision" in the interest of the state and the country as a whole.

Khanna further said that even Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed concern over the carelessness in following COVID-19 protocol, adding that the state government should not allow devotees to enter the state learning from the previous failure.