Tirumala: With the holiday pilgrim crowd continuing to throng the Tirumala hill shrine on Saturday, a stampede like situation developed in the queue lines giving tense moments to officials of the TTD.
They rushed to the Vaikuntam Q complex to get the situation under control. With absolutely no respite from the heavy influx of devotees due to a string of holidays, the serpentine queues became the order of the day even to get into the Vaikuntam Q complex, at the Kalyanakatta, Annadanam complex, laddu counters and at the reception counters.
Pilgrims were forced to wait in queue for close to two km to get into the Vaikuntam Q complex as all the compartments inside the complex were filled. As the staff managing the queue lines opened them to allow more devotees into the Vaikuntam Q complex - 2, thousands of devotees tried to rush inside by jostling each other.
At one point, a few devotees, including women and children fell down and sustained injuries in the melee as a stampede like situation prevailed at the queue lines.
However, the alert staff and the vigilance sleuths who realised that the situation was getting worse, tried to stop the devotees and helped them by shifting them to the TTD-run Aswini hospital for first aid with the help of ambulances.
Meanwhile, TTD JEO Mr K.S. Sreenivasa Raju, who rushed to the spot on learning about the developments in the queue lines, decided to immediately cancel the ‘Divya darshan’ for devotees trekking up the hills through the pedestrian routes owing to the heavy and unprecedented rush atop the hill shrine already.
Mr Sreenivasa Raju also added that from now on the Divya darshan would be cancelled during the weekends if the pilgrim influx is heavy.
The JEO asked the officials concerned, besides the vigilance staff and policemen to ensure the situation in the queue lines is closely monitored to prevent any untoward incidents.
