New Delhi: Government Railway Police Superindent Manjunath TC has announced that trains to Haridwar will be stopped between April 11th & 14th as the 'shahi snan' will take place on April 12th and April 14th at the ongoing Kumbh Mela.
Devotees will have to deboard at Jwalapur, Roorkee & Laksar stations from where they'll be ferried in shuttle buses instead.
Ahead of Haridwar Kumbh Mela, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat assured that the state government is ready to organise a grand and safe Kumbh Mela and said concrete arrangements have been made for the convenience and safety of devotees.
The Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to be followed till April 30 by the Uttarakhand government.
Devotees will have to produce a negative RT-PCR test reports on arrival which shouldn't be older than 72 hours, the Uttarakhand government has made it mandatory for people coming from 12 states. According to an India Today report, Chief Secretary Om Prakash said this applies to devotees coming from Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan by road, air and trains from today.
Media report said that violations of the SOPs, violations will be punishable under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the Epidemics Act, 1897, and relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. The SOPs were modified after 32 people tested positive earier this week.