A day after six people died in a stampede at the Sri Venkateswara Swami Temple in Tirumala, heads rolled within the Tirupati district administration and the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) Thursday after the Andhra Pradesh government under Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu suspended two officials and transferred three others.
Naidu, who visited the site of Wednesday’s stampede, announced the suspension of Tirupati’s Deputy Superintendent of Police Ramana Kumar and Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) SV Dairy Farm Director Harinatha Reddy. Tirupati’s SP L Subbarayudu, Joint Executive Officer M Goutami, and TTD’s Chief Vigilance and Security Officer (CVSO) S Sreedhar have been transferred.
The chief minister also ordered a judicial probe into Wednesday night’s stampede, caused when the gates of Padmavathi Park, where tickets for the upcoming Vaikunta Ekadasi festival were being distributed, were opened. Six people were killed and scores were wounded in the crush.
Deputy SP Ramana Kumar was in-charge of crowd control and security at Padmavathi Park, the site of the stampede. Reddy, meanwhile, has been found responsible for deciding where the ticket counters had to be set up. The CM’s move comes at a time when his government is taking flak for crowd mismanagement at the temple ahead of the Vaikunta Ekadasi festival, which begins January 10.
While making the announcements, Naidu observed that some of the places where the ticket counters were set up were not suited to handle large crowds, and that the IAS and IPS officers at TTD and Tirupati Police took their jobs casually. He also said there was a failure at “various levels”.
While Subbarayudu and Sreedhar are IPS officers, Goutami is an IAS officer.
“Deputy SP Ramana Kumar displayed utter lack of responsibility when he asked the gates at Padmavathi Park to be opened to evacuate a woman suffering from breathing problems,” the CM said. “He is a senior police officer. He should have assessed the situation better… What happened was that devotees who were at the back thought the gates had been opened and tickets were being issued, and they tried to rush out, which caused the stampede. Any mistake, done knowingly or unknowingly, which results in deaths, cannot be forgiven.”
He also suggested measures – such as issuing tickets for the Vaikuntha Ekadasi festival at district levels – to help ensure there’s no repeat of such an incident. Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister K Pawan Kalyan, who also visited Tirupati, accused the TTD and the police of “failing” to appropriately assess the situation in light of the increase in devotees ahead of the festival.
The visit comes at a time when the Opposition Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) government is trying to corner the Naidu government over the stampede. In a statement, YSRCP leader and former Andhra Pradesh minister Velampalli Srinivasa Rao described Wednesday as a “black” day in the history of the TTD, otherwise “well-known” for managing huge crowds.
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