Only the organizers of Durga Puja committees can participate in pandals in numbers ranging from 15 to 25
No visitors will be allowed inside Durga Puja pandals in West Bengal and the Puja mandap will be treated as a ‘containment zone’ this year, the Calcutta High Court said in an order on Monday.
A division bench of Judge Sanjib Banerjee and Judge Arijit Banerjee in the order said that only organizers of Durga Puja committees can enter pandals in numbers ranging from 15 to 25. The court said the “No entrance “should be placed near Durga Puja pandals this year and awareness campaign should be carried out to inform people about the High Court order.
Hearing a public interest litigation on the issue of Durga Pujas’ admission to the State during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Court observed that the police do not have enough resources to control the crowd if people go down to the streets.
“The Calcutta High Court said that in the case of small 5-meter Durga Puja pandals and large puja pandals, 10 meters should be declared a no-entry zone. The distance will have to be measured from where the border of the Durga Puja pandal ends, ”said Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, the petitioner’s defense attorney.
Also read: Kolkata caught between festivities and fear of COVID-19
The Court also ordered that the names of Durga Puja organizers allowed within the puja pandal will be displayed outside the pandal and cannot be changed every day.
The order takes on great significance as there are around 37,000 Durga Pujas organized across the state despite warnings issued by doctors that overcrowding during Durga Puja may worsen the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent days, the state is seeing a new increase in COVID-19 cases every day and more than 60 deaths.
Last week, the Calcutta High Court, in another important order, ordered that the money allocated by the state government to Durga Puja can only be spent on the distribution of masks, disinfectants and community policing, and not for organizing Durga Puja or entertainment of the organizers.
The state government has announced 50,000 rupees each for the 37,000 Durga Puja community committees in the state.
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