There was a heavy rush of pilgrims at Sabarimala for the last two days
Devotees in queue at the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala.
Kochi: At least 20 devotees were injured, three seriously, in heavy rush at Valiyanadapandal and Marakootam on Tuesday morning as the Sabarimala Lord Ayyappa temple witnessed a sudden surge in inter-state pilgrim flow.
“The seriously injured were identified as Thulaseedharan Pillai, 42, a native of Pattazhi near Kollam, his daughter Anamika, 11, and Sreenivas Rao, 45, from Andhra Pradesh. They were rushed to Kottayam Medical College. The others were discharged after first aid at the Sannidhanam medical centre,” the police said.
There was a heavy rush of pilgrims at Sabarimala for the last two days. “We’re forced to implement restrictions today morning to control the rush. The pilgrim movement was restricted from Pampa itself. There were 19 crowd control points between Pampa and Sannidhanam,” said the police.
“We’ve decided to deploy one more company of Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) at various points to control the rush. The inflow of pilgrims increased after the rains subsided in Chennai,” said Mr Manoj Abraham, Inspector-General of Police.
From the early morning itself, a long queue extending up to Marakootam could be seen and pilgrims had to wait for over 10 hours to get ‘darshan.’
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( Source : deccan chronicle )
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