RAJAHMUNDRY: In the wake of the stampede at the pushkar ghat here on Tuesday which had left 27 pilgrims dead and several others injured, the government has appointed IPS officers at various ghats to ensure the safety of pilgrims.
Disclosing this to Express here on Thursday, the sources added that the police had tightened the safety and security measures at the ghats as well as at the barricades. This followed the Wednesday midnight inspection of the various ghats here by chief minister Chandrababu Naidu and his direction to the police officials to ensure the safety and security of the pilgrims.
The sources said that as many as 12 lakh pilgrims thronged the city on Thursday to take a holy dip as against 5.5 lakh on Wednesday. They added that there was a heavy rush of pilgrims at various bathing ghats on Thursday from 3 a.m. onwards and the pilgrim rush continued till 10 a.m. as the day was marked by Amavasya - considered an important day for offering ‘pinda pradanam’. The bathing ghats were chock-a-block. At Kotilingala Ghat, pilgrims were stopped in temporory barricade compartments.
Meanwhile, sanitation workers failed to clean up the mess at the ‘pinda pradanam’ platforms on Thursday and as a consequence, the pilgrims as well as the priests faced severe problems in conducting the rituals, the sources said.