Six killed in Andhra temple stampede

TNN / Jan 4, 2008, 02:36 IST

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At least six people, including five women and a child, were killed and 20 hurt in a stampede on the road leading to Kanakad-urgamma temple on Thursday morning.

VIJAYAWADA: At least six people, including five women and a child, were killed and 20 hurt in a stampede on the road leading to Kanakad-urgamma temple on Thursday morning.
The stampede took place on the ghat road when about 1.5 lakh devotees rushed towards Andhra Pradesh's well known hill shrine on the last day of Bhavani deeksha ceremony. The devotees thronged the Indrakeelahadri hill, where the temple is situated, for a darshan of Goddess Kanaka Durga.
The AP government has ordered a probe into the incident and chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy has sought status report from the collector on the circumstances leading to the stampede.
The government has announced Rs 1 lakh for the kin of those killed and Rs 10,000 for each of the injured. State endowment minister J Ratnakar Rao has ordered a departmental probe into the incident and blamed the temple authorities for failing to make proper arrangements. Vijaywada police chief C V Anand said the temple authorities ignored cops' warning about the heavy rush of devotees.

Temple trust board chairman M Narayana Reddy resigned after the incident, but blamed the cops for not deploying enough personnel. "Thursday's tragedy showed the authorities' lack of seriousness in taking proper steps to meet the huge pilgrim rush," a former temple official said.
In a similar incident in 2004, five people were killed on the first day of Krishna Pushkarams on Prakasam Barrage. The state government had shifted the then collector Prabhakara Reddy and police commissioner T Krishna Prasad.

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