Ekadasi rush: havoc rules Tirumala
TIRUMALA: Havoc ruled sacred Tirumala hills, which witnessed three stampedes on Thursday. For at least two hours, pilgrims were stranded and stampedes occurred three times.
Pilgrims wearing yellow dress under Govinda Mala deeksha reached Tirumala at 1 pm. It is normal practice that they enter the temple in the afternoon and come out after darshan on Vaikunta Ekadasi day. But the temple administration has announced that they will allow pilgrims into the queue complex for Ekadasi darshan only after 6 pm, which angered the waiting devotees.
As the TTD authorities have dedicated the old and recently erected queue lines to VIPs, several queue lines were empty. When the pilgrims tried to enter the empty queue lines, police stopped them at several points.
At one time, a group of pilgrims decided to enter an empty queue line at SMC generator point and sit there. Cops rushed to the spot and forcibly sent the pilgrims out of the queue line.
News Posted: 1 January, 2015
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