Representative photo.

KANPUR: A red stone found floating in the Ganga created a sensation in Maharajpur area of Kanpur on Wednesday. Several boatmen ferrying people from Unnao to Dyodhighat in Maharajpur in Kanpur district saw the stone and alerted the locals residents. The stone was promptly retrieved and placed at a temple amidst Hindu rituals.

The stone, weighing 15 kgs and measuring around 15 inches, does not sink in water and has become a centre of attraction for the locals who visited the temple in large numbers to pay obeisance.

“The stone was first seen by a boatman Ram Prasad Nishad, a native of Unnao. He took out the stone out of curiosity but threw it back. But when it did not sink and resurfaced, he considered it to be a strange occurrence. He told us about the stone and we retrieved it from the river. It has been placed at the Ram-Janki temple with all Hindu rituals,” said Chaitanya Prakash Brahmachari, mahant of Hanuman temple located at Dyodhighat on the banks of the Ganga.

“We may consider it as a miracle, but the authorities should depute experts to find out the facts about the floating stone,” said the mahant.

He asserted that “there had been such floating stones near Rameshwaram where a bridge had been constructed by Lord Rama’s army to cross the sea and reach Lanka”.

Now, the Dyodhighat temple has become centre of attraction and people from neighbouring areas are making a beeline to have darshan of the stone and also pay obeisance, he added.

“Devotees scrambled and pushed each other to get near the stone. While some tried to touch it, others bowed with folded hands in a show of obeisance. I saw stone floating in river for the first time in my life, said Amit Mishra, a priest at Hanuman temple, after the stone was floated in the river to test its “buoyancy”.

Dr Rajeev Gupta of the physics department, IIT-Kanpur, said: “Such stones are formed by volcanic ash. They have air trapped inside them and hence can float.”

