A stampede occurred at the famous Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh late on Wednesday the evening, resulting in the death of six devotees and leaving many others injured. However, the police have confirmed the death of four devotees.
The incident took place near the Darshan ticket centers at the Vaikunth gate, where thousands of devotees had been standing in queues for tickets for darshan since morning. Many women and elderly people were also standing.
The chaos erupted as devotees were allowed to queue up at Bairagi Pattida Park, coinciding with the opening of the Vaikunth Dwar Darshan for a ten-day period. This led to an overwhelming crowd of about 4,000 people vying for tokens. Amid the confusion, six people lost their lives, including a woman named Mallika.
Authorities were eventually able to regain control of the situation, which had become difficult to manage due to the large number of attendees. The gate where the incident occurred was scheduled to open on January 10.
On Tuesday, Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) Executive Officer J Shyamala Rao announced that the Vaikuntha Ekadashi and the gate would be open for darshan from January 10 to 19. This led to the influx of devotees as they wanted to collect tokens for the darshan.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu expressed his profound grief over the incident and has been in contact with officials to assess the situation. Emergency services, including police presence and ambulances, quickly reachewd at the scene to provide assistance.
