Inter-state religious festival passes off peacefully in LWE affected area

Polluru (Andhra Pradesh), March 23 : An inter-state religious festival in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, with a quartet of deities, went off peacefully without any untoward incident in left wing extremism (LWE) infested area.

Manyamkonda Jatara, the village festival which entails shifting idols from Odisha to Andhra at Polluru village in Mothugudem mandal of East Godavari district, ended on Monday evening.

"Idols of deities Kannamaraju, Bapiraju, Pothuraju and Muthyalamma have crossed the Sileru River at about 8 a.m.from Malkangiri in Odisha to Polluru village, Mothugudem mandal of Andhra Pradesh," said a police official.After bathing the deities under the Polluru waterfalls, the idols were kept ready for Darshan (faithfuls visit) and as many as 10,000 devotees visited them from morning till evening.

"Most of them (devotees) had darshan of the deities and the idols procession returned to Malkangiri at about 6 p.m.," he said.As the festival was taking place in a LWE affected area, East Godavari district police, led by superintendent of police (SP) Adnan Nayeem Asmi, monitored the event.

"It is a famous tribal festival connected to both the states, Andhra and Odisha and being celebrated in the LWE affected area.It went off without any incident," the official noted.

Malkangiri district collector Vijay and several other senior officials participated in the festival.A state disaster response force (SDRF) team was also kept on standby.