Andhra Pradesh - Tirupati   

Stampede at ‘Oneness Temple’: toll rises to 5

TIRUPATI: A day after the stampede which claimed five lives and left more than 100 persons injured, some of them critically, an eerie calm hangs heavily on the 500-acre campus of the ‘Oneness Temple’ which was due for consecration on April 26.

The tragedy occurred on Tuesday when the preliminary ceremonies for the inauguration of the temple—‘Kalki Bhagavan Deeksha Peetham’--were under way amid a huge congregation of about four lakh followers of the Kalki cult drawn from different parts of the country, including some from abroad, converging at the complex having arrangements only for half the crowd.

According to initial investigations, the stampede occurred when the thirsty devotees, in the absence of any proper facility for drinking water, pushed and jostled with each in frenzy at a water point.

In the resultant melee, many persons, including women, aged and infirm were pushed and trampled upon by the surging crowd, leaving five persons dead and more than 100 injured.

Among the deceased were a Sri Lankan devotee, Sothirlingam, and a Forest Range Officer from Jangareddigudem in West Godavari, Srinivasa Rao, and a physically challenged person whose identity is yet to be established.

The condition of four critically injured devotees is said to be still precarious.

Meanwhile the Chittoor District Collector, M. Ravindra, DIG, Anantapur, Jayarama Reddy, and the Chittoor SP, G. Lakshmi Reddy, visited the scene of the tragedy on Wednesday.

Sources said that at the instance of the district civil and police authorities, the consecration of the temple slated for Saturday has indefinitely been put off.

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