With just a day left for the authorities to start regulating the inflow of devotees to Sabarimala, the holy hillock on Tuesday witnessed a heavy rush with people waiting in queues for hours to perform the pilgrimage.
The rush to the Ayyappa temple was so intense that the handrail of a flyover at Sannidhanam, through which the pilgrims are routed to the temple, collapsed due to overcrowding. Though some pilgrims fell down, no injuries were reported.
As per official estimates, an average of one lakh devotees have been visiting the temple on a daily basis since its reopening on December 30. In a bid to ease the rush for the Makaravilakku festival, the authorities have brought down the limit of virtual queue bookings for January 14 and 15 to 50,000 and 40,000 respectively.
Thiruvabharanam procession
Elaborate arrangements are being made in connection with the Thiruvabharanam procession as well. The three-day procession carrying the ‘Thiruvabharanam’, to be adorned on the idol of Lord Ayyappa during the Makaravilakku festival, will begin from on January 13.
Meanwhile, a new batch of police officers on Tuesday begun taking charge of the security and crowd management duties at Sabarimala in a phased manner, while retaining 50 percent of the police officers from the previous batch.
While the first batch of 950 police officers led by 10 Deputy Police Superintendents took charge , the rest will join the duty on Thursday. An additional batch of 350 police officers led by six deputy superintendents will join the duty on January 13 , taking the total deployment for the Makaravilakku festival to 2,500.
