Amritsar, Jan 1 (IANS): Thousands of devotees on Sunday thronged the Harmandir Sahib, popularly known as the Golden Temple, here to offer prayers on the first day of the New Year.

The rush of devotees started late Saturday evening with the shrine complex getting jampacked by midnight.

The shrine complex was illuminated for the occasion.

With the dawn of the first day of 2023, thousands were seen queued up to offer prayers at Harmandir Sahib - the sanctum sanctorum and the holiest of the Sikh shrines.

"For years we have been coming here to pay obeisance on the first of the New Year," remarked Harpreet Gill, a resident of Delhi who offered prayers at the Golden Temple with his family.

"We took a holy dip in the sarovar before dawn for a peaceful 2023, full of hope for a better world," added another visitor Gurcharan Kaur.

Braving the chill since early morning, thousands of devotees turned up to offer prayers at the shrine and took dip in the holy sarovar at Golden Temple.

Elsewhere in Punjab, people thronged various shrines in Amritsar, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Patiala and other towns.

The festiv spirit could also be seen in Chandigarh and towns and cities in Haryana.