SABARIMALA: Just three days into the two-month-long pilgrimage season, the Ayyappa temple of Sabarimala has been witnessing heavy rush making it a tough task for the police and other agencies to manage the crowd and traffic.
Since the dawn of the auspicious month of Vrishchikam of the Malayalam calendar yesterday, devotees in thousands have been flocking to the hill shrine outstripping the rush in the initial days of the ‘Mandala’ season in previous years, temple officials said.
The pilgrims, mostly from different southern states, had begun to trek to the temple atop the Sabari hill from the base camp on the banks of the river Pampa since the evening of November 16, when the temple portals were opened for the season.
Though over 1500 police personnel have been deployed for the opening phase, the high flow of pilgrims has made the force presence insufficient.
According to police sources, the situation would be reviewed at the earliest and more forces would be requisitioned to cope up with unexpected onrush in the first week of the pilgrimage itself.(PTI)
