Hanuman deeksha devotees thronged Kondagattu shrine

The three-day Hanuman Chinna Jayanthi jatara began at Kondagattu Anjaneyaswamy temple with large turnout of devotees. A temporary pandal collapse left a few injured, while police deployed 1,000 personnel and made elaborate arrangements for smooth conduct

Jagtial: A three-day Hanuman Chinna Jayanthi jatara began at the Kondagattu Anjaneyaswamy temple on Wednesday. Elaborate arrangements have been made for the jatara, in which about 3 lakh devotees are likely to take part. Devotees who took Hanuman deeksha started reaching the shrine from Tuesday.

Queue lines were filled with Hanuman deeksha swamis as a huge number of devotees from erstwhile Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Adilabad, Warangal and other districts visited the temple. After having darshan of the presiding deity, they tied their ‘Erumudis’ in a specially arranged compartment for the purpose.

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A few devotees sustained injuries when a temporary pandal arranged at Kalyanakatta near Koneru (temple tank) collapsed at 4 am on Wednesday. Besides devotees taking shelter under the pandal, barbers were also injured in the incident. Poor quality work is said to be the reason for the collapse of the pandal.

In a statement, temple Executive Officer Anjana Reddy said that a portion of the pandal tilted due to heavy winds, but nobody was injured in the incident. In order to conduct the jatara in a peaceful manner, police made tight security arrangements by deploying 1,000 police personnel.

Bomb and dog squad teams carried out checking on the temple premises, including the main entrance, parking places and other areas.