Pilgrims take holy dip at Ganga Sagar

SAGAR ISLANDS (WB): An estimated 65,000 people took a dip at Gangasagar on Sunday morning and offered prayers at Kapil Muni's temple ahead of Makar Sakranti.
    
The people, who arrived from various parts of the country and Nepal, took the dip at five ghats at Gangasagar in South 24 Parganas district with the figure more than doubling than that of last year, official sources said.
    
25,000 people had taken the holy dip in 2007.
    
The sources said they were expecting the number of pilgrims to increase substantially by Monday.
    
Security arrangements on the islands have been strengthened for the occasion.
    
A temporary police station with a fully-operational control room was functioning and senior police officers were camping in the area, the sources said.
  
Twenty persons were nabbed for incidents of snatching since Saturday night, the sources said.
 
Keeping in mind safety considerations, fire-proof hutments have been erected for pilgrims, the sources said.
 
The hutments are generally made of leaves of the 'hogla' (typha elephantiana) plant, the sources said adding those leaves had been dipped in a fire-resistant chemical, dried and then used for making the huts.
  
Two hundred hutments have been erected for the pilgrims at Sagar, Kachuberia and Lot No 8.
  
Shankaracharya of Puri, Swami Nischalananda Saraswati has arrived here accompanied by 300 devotees.
    
About 250 Naga Sadhus have also arrived here with the number expected to swell on Makar Sankranti.