Kanwarias on their way to Deoghar.

Deoghar, July 24: More than 70,000 saffron-clad kanwarias (pilgrims) thronged the temple of Lord Baidyanath here today, chanting the name of Lord Shiva.

The kanwarias reached Deoghar on Sombar (Monday) from Sultanganj in Bhagalpur (Bihar), covering 110 km distance bare-feet, after collecting water from the Ganges there.

?The huge flow of devotees and pilgrims is beyond our control. It is the miracle of Lord Baidynath that no major untoward incident has so far taken place,? said a senior police official.

Security officials are virtually spending sleepless nights after the large number of kanwarias started pouring into the holy town from Saturday night. Arrangements were also made to send the kanwarais in queues on B.Ed college campus here to relax, but they broke the barricades and went on a rampage yesterday afternoon. As a result, police had to apply force on them, in which over dozens of kanwarias sustained injuries.

All the injured persons were rushed to Sadar hospital.Today?s situation was no different when police had to resort to lathi-charge on the unruly mob; in many occasion police had to control the unruly mob with cane points.

?We will certainly chalk out strategies to control the mob, otherwise Deoghar might witness major untoward incident,? said a top police official.

?We travelled from distant places in Nepal, but due to the poor security arrangements by the administration, we had to suffer,? complained many pilgrims from Bhutanand, Nepal.

?The rush of pilgrims is gradually increasing, but the administration is sleeping,? alleged Singhabahadur Tapa of Pokhra, Nepal. He has been coming here to worship Lord Shiva for 15 consecutive years.

However, both the administrations of Bihar and Jharkhand, for the first time, have provided security covers for one Krishna Bom, a Dak Bom (marathon runner). Krishna, a middle school headmistress in Muzaffarpur in Bihar, has been fetching water from Ganga at Sultanganj on every Sunday evening and reach Deoghar on the next morning, running the whole distance, for the last 26 years.