The 11-day old Ganesh festival celebrated by lakhs of Hyderabadis came to a peaceful end with the authorities completing the immersion of more than 50,000 Ganesh idols by this afternoon.

The immersion was to have been completed by Sunday evening but late arrival of main idols was delayed by several hours due to unexpected traffic jams at several key locations in the city. “If everybody had followed the time sense, the immersion programme would have been over yesterday itself,” said police commissioner AK Khan.

In fact the centralized procession from Balapur started two-and-a-half hours late delaying the arrival of other idols. The Balapur Ganesh idol crossed Charminar road around 5 pm and another 1000 more idols were still waiting to be moved from their pandals at that particular time.

An unprecedented security cover has been thrown in the city for a peaceful immersion and police heaved a sigh of relief as there was no untoward incident during the 11-day festivities and the two-day immersion activity.

The highlight of this year’s festivities was the stage set up by the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen near Charminar.  Its corporators welcomed the centralized procession of Ganesh idols. Meanwhile, the BJP state president, Mr G. Kishan Reddy, and former minister, Mr A. Narendra, demanded that the Ganesh festival be declared as a national festival.