MADURAI
Thousands of pilgrims thronged Sathuragiri hills on Madurai-Virudhunagar border to offer prayers at Sri Sundara Mahalingam Temple and Sri Santha Mahalingam Temple on the occasion of Aadi amavasai on Sunday.
Two pilgrims, Krishnamoorthy (63) of Vellore and Ravikumar (40) of Sivakasi, died on the hills reportedly due to cardiac arrest on Sunday evening, according to police.
“Over 1.25 lakh devotees could have climbed up the hills in the last three days,” said Madurai Superintendent of Police N. Manivannan.
Over 500 police personnel from the district were deployed on the hilly path traversing reserved forest area to regulate the crowd. However, sources said around 65,000 devotees moving on the unfriendly terrain led to a lot of congestion.
Some of the devotees had to retreat without visiting the temples due to overcrowding along the narrow and difficult hilly path.
The fears of the district administrations of Madurai and Virudhunagar about water shortage on the hills due to the severe drought conditions turned true. The officials could stock only around 1.25 lakh litres of water on the hills. “With no rain in the region for the past few days, there was no spring that could help the devotees,” an official said.
Though volunteers had distributed water packets and water bottles, the sudden surge in the crowd led to high demand for water. “A one litre bottle was sold for ₹60. We had spent ₹300 on water alone,” complained a devotee, Petchiammal from Erode.
Though Virudhunagar district administration had made elaborate arrangements for parking of vehicles, vehicular congestion forced devotees to walk extra distance even to reach the foothills at Thaniparai.
Director Generals of Police T.K. Rajendran (Law and Order) and Mahendran (Electricity Board - Vigilance) also climbed up the hill.
