Near stampede like situation prevailed at Tirumala – the sacred abode of Lord Venkateswara on Saturday when the pilgrims with the Divya Darshan tokens violently pushed and jostled each other in the queue lines which spilled out on to the road and stretched beyond a couple of kilometres outside the massive Vaikuntam queue complex. In the melee four pilgrims who were injured were immediately rushed to the TTD run Aswini hospital for medical treatment. However their condition is said to be safe.
On receiving the information the TTDs Executive officer L.V. Subramayam immediately rushed to the hospital and called on the injured and instructed the hospital authorities to extend them required medical relief.
Meanwhile it may be mentioned that the temple town is under the grip of huge pilgrim influx for the past two days being the weekend and summer vacations. What further added to the rush is the declaration of the results for the various examinations held in April.
The unprecedented turnout in the pilgrim crowd nevertheless has thrown all the arrangements made by the temple administration out of gear. The entire temple town was either choked with the movement of pilgrims or heavy vehicular traffic. Things were rather worst at various accommodation counters where the devotees had to wait for long hours in securing a minimum accommodation.
Situation was no different at Kalyanakatta – (tonsuring centre ), Free meals complex and laddu issuing counters. Serpentine queue lines were the order of the day. The pre-monsoon clouds which dominated the sky however brought-in a sigh of relief to the devotees waiting in the open queue lines under the scorching Sun.
To ensure quicker darshan to the waiting devotees the management had slapped the Maha laghu darshan system inside the temple. While it took a staggering 25 hours for the devotees in the dharma darshan queue lines the waiting time stretched beyond twelve hours to both the Rs.300/- special entry ticket holders and the Divya darshan ticket holders. According to the information available over 26,000 devotees had already availed the Divya darshan tickets issued half-way on the footpath by 1.00 p.m., in the afternoon. To further bring things under control the temple management had stopped the issuance of special entry tickets since afternoon.
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