PATHANAMTHITTA: Sabarimala hill shrine witnessed heavy rush of pilgrims on Tuesday. Though the police expected huge rush on Saturday and Sunday, the expected crowd had not reached the hill shrine on those days.
To ensure proper crowd management, the police blocked vehicles of pilgrims at ‘edathavalams’ on Tuesday. This time, the police did not block the vehicles on forest routes, as was done earlier, as such actions invited criticism and brought miseries to pilgrims.
District police chief V Ajith said that to control the crowd they have blocked the vehicles at ‘edathavalams’ in Pathanamthitta, Perunad, Laha and Erumeli. “From Tuesday morning till noon, vehicles were blocked for at least two hours. In the afternoon, vehicles were blocked for only one to half an hour. As many as 65,000 pilgrims visited the hill shrine till 3 pm on Tuesday,” Ajith said.
Anticipating huge rush during Mandala pooja, the police have started arrangements for controlling the crowd. As part of the drive, 500 additional cops will be deployed in Sabarimala in the coming days.
During Mandala pooja, as many as 2,700 cops will be available for duty at Sabarimala.
Currently, over 2,150 personnel, including police, RRF, bomb squad, CRPF and NDRF wings are working at Sannidhanam alone. On Tuesday, duty of 750 policemen ended at Sabarimala and new officials took charge in their places.
DIG Rahul R Nair welcomed new police officials to Sannidhanam at the programme held at Sannidhanam auditorium.
On the occasion, he said as the rush at Sabarimala is increasing, the police should become more proactive. “Currently, around 40% of the total pilgrims who reach Sabarimala are women and children. So the responsibility of the policemen here has also increased,” he said.
Currently, the cops have been deployed as 10 divisions under DySPs. As many as 10 DySPs, 35 inspectors and 105 SIs and ASIs are leading the police force here.
Police special officer K S Sudarsanan said they are making arrangements anticipating that the rush of pilgrims will go up in the coming days. “As many as 4,000 pilgrims are now ascending the holy steps per hour. We are working to ensure a smooth darshan for all pilgrims,” he said.
HIGH COURT NOD FOR INCREASING SPOT BOOKING
Kochi: The High Court has permitted the chief police coordinator, Sannidhanam, in consultation with the devaswom commissioner, to increase the limit for spot booking from 10,000 to 15,000 when the footfall at Sannidhanam and Pampa is far below their holding capacities and the tail end of the queue is at a safer zone. The court had asked the devaswom board to limit the spot booking facility to 10,000 on days when the virtual queue booking has reached 80,000