35 Tamil Nadu devotees die in Sabari mayhem

With 35 Ayyappa devotees from Tamil Nadu dying in the Sabarimala stampede on Friday, Pongal and the New Year began on a gloomy note in the state.
Of the 102 who died in the stampede at Pulmedu, near Vandiperiyar, caused by the Idukki district administration’s failure to have in place crowd control measures, 95 bodies have so far been identified while the remaining seven are kept at Kottayam medical college hospital.
Besides 35 devotees from Tamil Nadu, a Sri Lankan Tamil and two Tamils from Puducherry, 31 from Karnataka and 23 from Andhra Pradesh were killed.

The pilgrims had converged at the reserve forests of Pulmedu on Friday night to catch a glimpse of the celestial makarajyothi that marks the culmination of the Sabarimala season.
Theni SP V. Balakrishnan said, “Though the road from Vallakadavu check-post to Pulmedu was narrow, there seems to have been a lot of space. Reports reaching us say that the devotees had tried to get into a jeep and the vehicle lost control and went on auto gear hitting a chain of vehicles triggering a stampede. Another version given by the eye-witnesses is that the pilgrims stumbled upon the iron chain barricades put up to segregate the crowd.”
Only two viewpoints, including one in Pamba, are officially recognised while Pulmedu in the reserve forest is not. “Though vehicles are barred entry into Pulmedu, the forest staff allowed them after collecting `100 from each vehicle,” said a pilgrim. The sea of devotees seem to have grown restless as the makarajyothi darshan was delayed by some 20 minutes. Nandini, 10, and her father Ramakrishnanv, 45, of Coimbatore were among the 35 persons from Tami Nadu who were killed.
While eight people belonged to Dharmapuri, six were from Coimbatore, three each from Chennai and Ooty, two each from Pollachi and Tirupur and one each from other places across the state. Kalidoss, a relative of G. Madhu, 34, of Madurai, who died, sobbed, “For my brother-in-law, this was the first pilgrimage to Sabarimala. We came to know about his tragic end only after the Kumily police answered his cellphone to say that he was killed in the stampede.”
The pilgrims blamed the tragedy on poor security arrangements. “The whole place was pitch dark. Fully aware that Pulmedu is thronged by devotees from across the country every year, the Kerala government should have provided all facilities, especially lighting. There were hardly 10 policemen on duty,” an eyewitness said.