Dy CM Pawan Kalyan Apologises For Tirupati Stampede

The tragic death of pilgrims in a stampede at Tirumala has shook the administration in the state.

Deputy Chief Minister K. Pawan Kalyan owned up the responsibility for the tragedy and admitted that a lapse in the functioning of the concerned officials led to the death of six devotees at the pilgrim town. He apologized to the public in the state, Sanatan Dharma advocates, Lord Balaji devotees, the injured in the incident and the bereaved families. He also promised that necessary action would be initiated against those responsible for the tragedy.

He stressed the need to introduce radical changes in the TTD’s guidelines. TTD’s policy should deviate from the ‘VIPs First’ to ‘Common Man priority’, he said.

The TTD management requires expertise in crowd management. An inquiry needs to done over how the condition could slip out of control when just 2,500 devotees congregated for the Vaikunta Ekadasi darshan while nearly 4 lakh devotees could be managed without any aberration, during Garuda Seva.

The Deputy CM squarely blamed EO Syamala Rao and Additional EO Venkaiah Chowdary for the deaths.

Pawan Kalyan stressed that the TTD should ensure that devotees should complete their darshan within a couple of hours. Else, the queue system should be strengthened and it should be managed properly.

Heavy police force including 11,000 constables, 2 additional SPs, 11DSPs, 38 Inspectors, 78 SIs, 16 special parties containing 12 personnel each, and Home Guards were pressed into service but the tragedy happened and it clearly signals negligence of the supervising authorities, he said.

Of the six persons who died in the stampede, four belonged to Andhra Pradesh, one each to Tamil Nadu and Kerala.