Bhaktapur, April 3
Authorities in Bhaktapur have shifted temporary camps, where around 60 displaced families had been living after last year’s earthquakes, to organise Bisket Jatra there.
Rendered homeless in the quakes, the victims had been living at Lyansikhel in Bhaktapur, the site where a wooden pole is installed every year as part of Bisket Jatra celebrations.
Shekhar Khanal, deputy superintendent of police at the Metropolitan Police Circle Bhaktapur, said authorities shifted around 60 quake-hit families elsewhere to ensure continuation of the historic festival.
He said: We have evacuated the site and shifted the victims. Now there will be no problem in organising the festival.
Local people and police personnel have cleaned up the site. The Jatra will begin in a week.
Like in previous years, on the first day of the Jatra, people will pull the chariot of Bhairav, three days later they will install the wooden pole and in the evening of Baishakh 1, the new year, they will dismantle the pole after a daylong chariot procession. The festival lasts eight nights and nine days.
