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Pathanamthitta: Kerala Police and the Travancore Devaswom Board were at the receiving end of pilgrims' anger after they were forced to wait for more than 12 hours in queue at the Sabarimala Ayappa temple.
The decision to limit the virtual queue booking to 80,000 per day has also not produced the desired results with devotees from across the state and from neighbouring states standing in the long line for darshan.
"I spent five hours on the road to the temple when they blocked the traffic. Now, I am waiting in the queue to have darshan for 14 hours," a pilgrim told Manorama News. Numerous pilgrims, especially elderly people and children, have complained of uneasiness after getting trapped in the rush at the temple.
On Saturday, a girl collapsed and died while waiting in the queue. A day after the child's death, the devaswom restored the special access queue for the elderly and children. Though the High Court had ordered to reinstatement of the queue system, no action was taken since the commencement of the pilgrimage season.
Following TDB restoring the special queue, a board was displayed to announce the opening of Queue 9 only for the elderly, children and differently-abled.
Special seatings were also arranged for these categories of pilgrims as directed by the devaswom board. But this time, the special queue system was found violated as pilgrims irrespective of age and health conditions were found queuing up here. Manorama News reported that the queue blocks at the temple were found crowded, though no rush was seen in Sannidhanam.
In 2022, TDB cut down the waiting time for the people in special queues by 2 hours when the number of devotees crossed 1lakh. Though the number of pilgrims is below 1 lakh, neither the Devaswom nor the police succeeded in managing the rush.
As the crowd management has gone haywire, the devaswom board on Saturday decided to limit the virtual queue booking to 80,000 per day. The rush in the temple increased as a huge number of pilgrims ascended the hill shrine using the spot booking facility.
