CHENNAI: With only a few days remaining for devotees to get a glimpse of the Aththi Varadar idol at a temple in Kancheepuram, a writ petition has been filed in the Madras High Court for a direction to the HR&CE department to extend the period for public view by another 48 days.
Also, the petitioner asked to restrain the executive officer of Sri Varadaraja Perumal Temple from immersing the idol back in the temple tank on August 17. The petition is likely to come up for hearing on Wednesday (August 14).
In her petition, one Tamizharasi of Meensurutti village in Ariyalur district alleged that the arrangements made for the crowd management by the district administration and the police was very poor. This failure on the part of the State has resulted in a large number of devotees not able to get even a glimpse of Aththi Varadar, leave alone a ‘Divya Darshan’, which takes place once in 40 years. She prayed the court to order extension of the time by one more 'Mandalam' (48 days).
Lakhs of devotees have been thronging the temple in the last month to get a glimpse of the idol. About 10 have died due to suffocation though the state government said in many cases the reason of death was health issues. A few devotees had also blamed improper crowd management as the main reason for the devotees getting hurt and fainting while waiting in the queue.
Toilet and drinking water facilities near the temple were also inadequate due to the unexpected levels of crowd. The state government also pressed in senior officials to inspect the arrangements and allocated more funds for the facilities.