Six people were killed and more than 20 were critically injured during a stampede at Tirupati Temple on Wednesday evening. That day, many devotees struggled to get tickets for the Vaikunta Ekadasi festival at Tirumala Tirupati Temple.
For the Festival, the Tirupati Devasthanam Trust Board or the TTD had set up around 90 counters at various locations inside the Tirupati city, where tickets were going to be available from 5 AM on Thursday. This announcement attracted tens and thousands of people for the Darshan, and initiated a stampede event that later killed six devotees.
The overwhelming crowd was out of control of the local city police. Within a few minutes, the chaos went out of hand as many started to get injured. The devotees physically affected were immediately rushed to the government run Shri Venkateswara Ramnarayan Ruia hospital for first aid. The identities of those affected are not confirmed by the authorities, yet.
Responding to the event, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu instructed the TTD, along with police officials, to extend best medical care to the stampede victims. He has also called for strict actions against employees responsible for the incident. The Andhra Pradesh deputy chief minister K Pawan Kalyan, has also commented on the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) authorities for continuing to ignore the common pilgrims by nurturing the VIP centric focus.
“This is not the way to deal with the arrangements for the common man. The TTD has to shed its VIP centric approach and start focusing on the common pilgrims. I am making this appeal to the TTD chairman also,” said Kalyan.
Deputy chief minister Kalyan expressed his displeasure at the poor lighting at the stampede area, odd hours for issuing tokens for Darshan and non-adherence to the standard operation procedures (SOPs) in cases of large crowds. He also criticised the practice of bureaucrats making policies and revising strategies within the confines of four walls, which does not give them the true picture for execution of plans.
