BHUBANESWAR: Hundreds of angry tourists forced their way into the Sun temple premises at Konark on Tuesday following a delay in receiving tickets.
While many jumped over and ducked through three entrance points, some others used the route on the left of the entrance to enter the premises. And in the absence of sufficient security guards, the melee continued with scant regard to the Covid safety protocols. Owing to the Covid situation, ASI had decided to issue only e-tickets.
Sources said when the lone ticket counter opened for the day around 10 am, it faced server issues as a result of which, the ticketing process came to a halt for nearly an hour. The queue at the counter only grew longer and frustrated with the delay in receiving tickets, the angry tourists barged into the temple by jumping the gates.
Although police rushed in to bring the situation under control, they could do little. The situation was back to normal only after the ticketing process resumed after nearly an hour.
Sources added that only 3,000 e-tickets can be issued at one slot but since there was a large crowd, processing of more tickets slowed the server down and it went kaput.
The Sun temple at Konark is one of the top-5 Centrally protected monuments that receives the maximum number of tourists during the tourism season (October to February).