Visakhapatnam : Devotees made a beeline to various temples to offer prayers and take part in the Abhishekam rituals carried out across Visakhapatnam on Wednesday marking ‘Maha Sivaratri’.

Milk sachets, flowers and puja items were on great demand as devotees offered them to the Siva Lingam as part of the festival rituals at shrines.

In several households, celestial bath was given to ‘Siva Lingas’ using aromatic substances, fresh flowers, milk, honey, assorted fruit juices and tender coconut water, etc. Scores of people visited Beach Road to take part in a host of programmes organised to mark the 40th ‘Maha Kumbabhishekam’ by the T Subbarami Reddy Trust at R K Beach.

“It’s a great opportunity to serve Lord Siva consistently for the past 40 years, installing ‘koti’ (one crore) Lingas at RK Beach. Through the ‘Maha Kumbabhishekam’, we intend to promote peace and harmony among people,” mentioned Subbarami Reddy, former Union Minister.

This year, the former Minister said that Maha Kumbabhishekam’ was performed by sourcing holy waters from the Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj.

Temples reverberated with conch shells and bells as elaborate rituals were performed on Maha Sivaratri to appease the Three-Eyed Lord.

RFID tags: With a huge crowd arriving at RK Beach to celebrate the festival, the city police implementedchild tags to trace missing children. The Radio Frequency Identification Driven (RFID) tags were fastened to the children’s wrist wherein the details of the child and parents along with the contact numbers were embedded in the QR code. The initiative taken by the city police made the tracing exercise of children much easier.