SONEPUR: Lanka Podi was celebrated in Sonepur amidst much fanfare on Sunday. In practice since the 8th century, the festival, also popular as Saptapuri amabasya, is a speciality of this region.
Apart from the customary rituals of worship by women, the festival is marked with recreation of scene of Hanuman burning Lanka. Children wrap terracotta statues of monkeys in cloth, douse them in kerosene and set them afire. The statues are then mounted on wheels and pulled through the streets of the town. They are then taken to the Lanka Podi ground where they are destroyed.