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Pilgrims flood into India
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A TORRENT of pilgrims from far and wide poured into India's giant Hindu festival on Saturday, the eve of the most auspicious day yet in what has been billed as the largest-ever gathering of human beings.
Organizers of the Maha Kumbh Mela (Grand Pitcher Festival) said they expected some eight million people to take a sin-cleansing bath in the holy river Ganges, which meets the Yamuna and a third, mythical river at a point known as the ''sangam'' in the northern city of Allahabad.
The ``Royal Bath'' day bega about one hour before dawn, with holy men, or sadhus, taking turns to immerse themselves in India's most revered river at the confluence point.
The rest will jostle for positions on the bathing ``ghats,'' putting the authorities' elaborate crowd control plans to their most severe test yet.
All the arrangements are complete for Sunday's Royal Bath, according to Divisional Commissioner in charge of the fair Sadakant, adding a dispute between rival sadhu brotherhoods over the sequence of bathing had been resolved.
The sadhus, many of them ash-smeared naked ascetics, who normally live in remote isolation existing on roots and herbs, will arrive in raucous processions at the sangam carrying their leaders aloft on fabulously decorated palanquins.
More than one million sadhus, gurus and their devotees have already camped out on the broad sandy flood plains of the river in a kaleidoscopic township of pavilion tents which sprang to life as the 42-day festival got under way earlier in the week.(SD-Agencies)
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