Sacred river pollution posing health risks for Hindu ritual – BBC News

Every year, millions of Hindus offer prayers to the sun while standing in water during the Chhath festival.

But for devotees in and around India’s capital, Delhi, the ritual is often tinged with fear: the Yamuna river, where they pray, is heavily polluted with industrial waste and untreated sewage.

For years, governments at the state and federal level have promised to fix the problem, but activists allege that progress is too slow. The BBC has emailed questions to representatives of Delhi’s water board and pollution control board.

While political parties take pot-shots at each other over the issue, the BBC’s Anshul Verma spoke to devotees who attended this year’s rituals on 31 October.

“We are scared – but what choice do we have?” one of them says.

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