Ramgarh: The Chinnamastika temple at Rajrappa in Ramgarh district is witnessing a surge in devotees for the first time since its reopening after the Covid-induced lockdown. On Sunday, more than 10,000 devotees from several districts turned up to offer puja, taking the temple authorities by surprise. Ramgarh DSP (headquarters) Prakash Soy said they had deployed adequate security personnel on the premises to prevent any untoward incident.
Temple priest Ajay Panda said, “We were taken aback by the turnout since we don’t have any festival today. As many as 10,000 came for darshan while 5,000 turned up for picnicking around the temple premises. The last time when such a massive turnout was witnessed was on Makar Sankranti.
Abhishek Anand, who came all the way from Ranchi with his family to offer puja, said, “We decided to go for a picnic after offering puja at the Rajrappa temple.”
On the contrary, Patratu dam, another popular tourist destination in the district, is mostly empty these days ever since an MBBS student’s body was found there earlier this month. Vishwajeet Ganguly, a senior manager of the Patratu Lake Resort located close to the dam, said the low turnout could be attributed to the government not allowing the dam to reopen in its unlock order issued earlier.