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Sants won't take holy bath

By Our Special Correspondent

LUCKNOW FEB. 1. Hindu sants and sadhus today protested the Government's failure to check pollution in the Ganga at Allahabad by refusing to take their traditional holy dip at the Sangam, the confluence of the Ganga, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati, on the occasion of Mauni Amawasya.

The protesters, led by the Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath, Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati, and Swami Nischalanand Saraswati of Puri, said this was only the beginning of their agitation to restore the purity of the Ganga. In future, they would take more stringent measures against the authorities, if they failed to check pollution in the holy river.

Chidatman Maharaj, a sadhu, went on an indefinite fast to press the demand. He would continue his fast until death as the "callous authorities" had failed to take any action to prevent pollution of the Ganga which was the symbol of purity, he said.

In a related development, a public interest litigation petition was filed in the Allahabad High Court seeking a mandamus directing the authorities to take urgent measures to prevent pollution.

The district magistrates of Allahabad and Kanpur, the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board, the Chief Secretary to U.P. Government and the Secretary, Urban Development Department, have been arraigned as respondents in the case filed by Guru Bachan Das, the Mahant Kabir Ashram of Allahabad.

The agitating religious leaders said that during the last 15 years after the Ganga Action Plan was launched only 50 per cent of the polluting industries had set up some kind of effluent treatment plants. A large number of these, however, never functioned up to the desired level. In Allahabad, 250 million litres of sewage was discharged in the Ganga of which only 100 million litres was treated before allowed to flow into the river.

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