Poor crowd control holds up Thaipusam rituals

GOING to Batu Caves for Thaipusam is an annual affair for me and my family from Johor Baru. For the past 20 years, we have carried pal kudum (pots of milk) in thanksgiving to Lord Muruga.

We drive at night to reach Batu Caves to catch the early morning darshan (prayers) on Thaipusam day. This year, we reached Batu Caves on Feb 8 at 3am and began to walk up the 272 steps.

It took about two-and-a-half hours from the riverside to the top of the temple for the pal kudum delivery. It took another one hour to descend. In the past, the whole process of ascending, praying and descending normally took less than two hours. This time, it was a nightmare that took about three-and-a-half hours.

The situation was worse for those who arrived later. The pal kudum queue extended to the information gate at 7.30am. It probably took more than four-and-a-half hours for the devotees in the queue to fulfil their vows.

What went wrong? My observations are as follows:

1. There was no system to keep the growing crowd from going up and forming bottlenecks everywhere. Three lanes were opened for upward movement but these were not well managed by the security officers.

Their instructions were executed without voice hailers and could

not be heard. Their presence had little or no impact in managing the huge crowd, so the people did what they felt was best; and that’s where the problem started. There was no sense of direction.

2. To make matters worse, at the top at the temple, only two priests manned the receiving of the pal kudum from thousands of devotees. This caused another major bottleneck, slowing down the prayer process of the crowd that was building up there.

A stampede could have occurred and many would have been injured or even died. There were no proper queuing lanes both at the approach to the stairs and upstairs at the cave. No crowd control measures were seen, resulting in the pal kudum and kavadi carriers blocking the base exit that led to the stairs and right up to the cave itself.

Furthermore, the souvenir shop at the cave blocked the free flow of devotees. This shop should be dismantled during Thaipusam.

To me and many other devotees, it was a frustrating experience

this year. The temple management and its committees should be accountable for all these shortcomings.

A sincere and systematic approach along with consistency would help to prevent the recurrence of this episode at Batu Caves.

I hope for a better experience in the years to come.

DOCTOR

Johor Baru