SABARIMALA: The lack of scientific crowd control practices and disaster management methods to deal with exigencies like stampede poses a dangerous situation at the hill shrine during the pilgrimage season. The situation is made all the more vulnerable during the peak season due to deployment of inexperienced police personnel and lack of latest equipment to deal with a stampede-like situation at Sannidhanam, particularly in front of the Holy Steps and Marakkoottam.
The state police authorities’ reluctance to deploy the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the elite wing of the Central Industrial Security Force and Rapid Action Force (RAF) to deal with overcrowding at Sannidhanam and Marakkoottam has complicated the situation.
Though about 200 NDRF commandos and Rapid Action Force personnel had been deployed on duty during the pilgrimage season for the last one decade to deal with any exigency, there has not yet been an effective deployment of the paramilitary forces.
Since the state police coordinate the functioning of the paramilitary forces in Sabarimala, hardly any chance has been given to the Central forces for proper man management.
Against the backdrop of the pilgrim tragedies at Pulmedu and Pampa-Hilltop, proper deployment of NDRF-RAF personnel in Sabarimala is needed to prevent a recurrence of mishaps, according to D Vijayakumar, Akhila Bharatha Ayyappa Seva Sangham (ABASS) vice-president.
Vijayakumar sought the Chief Minister’s intervention for issuing a clear directive to the Home Department for proper deployment and use of the elite Central paramilitary personnel to deal with emergency situations.
Barricade renovation
Even after the renovation of barricades at Valiyanadapandal, the lot of the pilgrims inside the barricades remains the same since the width is too narrow even to stand properly and lack of facility between the barricades for distribution of potable water to the pilgrims means parched devotees are forced to remain in queues for several hours. The sufferings of the pilgrims inside the barricades has not been alleviated as the reconstruction was carried out without advice from experts in the field.
Non-use of queue complexes
Though a decision was taken for optimum utilisation of the seven-queue complexes built at a cost of around R10 crore between Marakkoottam and Saramkuthi two years ago, there has not been any tangible action on the ground in this regard so far. The queue complexes, each having a capacity to accommodate 500 pilgrims at a time, remained unused due to the lack of coordination between the Travancore Devaswom Board and the police.