Delight dawns on devotees as places of worship reopen

Delight seemed to have dawned on the faithful in the state with the opening of the places of worship after a gap of nearly three months on Monday.

The Chamundeshwari temple atop Chamundi Hill in Mysuru and Srikanteshwara temple in Nanjangud of Mysuru district opened their doors for the devotees. However, only a few devotees visited the temples on day one.

District in-charge Minister S T Somashekar and people’s representatives took darshan of the deity at both the places.

All safety measures like screening and sanitising were in place. Devotees maintained social distance.

Somashekar said a decision was yet to be taken on allowing devotees to have darshan of Chamundeshwari on the Fridays during the month of Aashada, which commences this month end. He said it is difficult to ensure social distance when large crowds
gather.

Only a handful of devotees were present at the Rangananatha temple in Srirangapatna, Chaluvaraya Swami temple in Melkote, Bhoovarahaswamy temple in KR Pet and other Muzrai temples in Mandya district, even though all precautions had been taken.

Tipu Sultan’s tomb and other related monuments in Srirangapatna will open for visitors only after June 15.

The scene was the same in Hassan and Chamarajanagar districts. There were not many people in the mosques and churches too in the region.

But the Male Mahadeshwara Hill temple in Chamarajanagar district saw a good number of devotees.

The Kollur Mookambika temple in Udupi district was decked with flowers to mark the reopening. The Udupi Krishna Mutt will open for devotees after a few more days.

The Zeenath Baksh Central Jumma Masjid at Bunder in Mangaluru allowed the devotees to offer congregational prayer (namaz) on Monday, by adhering to the guidelines. Only a few masjids in the district allowed devotees to offer prayers.

Devotees started visiting temples in Mangaluru like Kadri Manjunatha, Mangaladevi, Polali Rajeshwari, besides Kukke Subrahmanya and Dharmasthala in Dakshina Kannada district.

Devotees wore masks and used hand sanitisers provided at the entrance of the temples and maintained social distance.

The staff at the Manjunatha temple in Dharmasthala were seen checking the temperature of the devotees using thermal scanner at the entrance.

At Kukke Subrahmanya Temple, authorities had made arrangements to collect address and phone number of the devotees

The Siddharoodamutt in Hubballi opened for devotees, with many offering prayers in the morning. The Moorusaviramutt also opened its doors for the faithful, who had the darshan of the Gadduges and Gurusiddha Rajayogindra Swami.