Huge crowd throngs Banke Bihari temple ahead of Krishna Janmashtami

With the Krishna Janmashtami festival around the corner, thousands of devotees are visiting Banke Bihari Temple in Mathura district, making it difficult for the temple management to control the crowd.

In view of the heavy rush, the temple management committee has installed barricades at many places for crowd control.

People living in the vicinity have also complained of poor crowd control management at Banke Bihari temple.

They demanded that a long-term plan should be chalked out with the participation of the devotees, local senior citizens, district administration, and the temple management committee to ensure safe darshan.

MEASURES FOR CROWD CONTROL

Vishal Sharma, Vice-Chairman of the Hindustani community, said that the encroachments near the temple should be removed immediately, the roads should be widened, and a system of online registration should be implemented to visit the temple so that crowd management would be possible.

He said that the festival of Krishna Janmashtami is just around the corner and thousands of devotees would visit Mathura-Vrindavan. Temple management and the district administration need to prepare for it in a planned manner and not implement another slapdash crowd control scheme. If proper arrangements for crowd management are made in time, then the possibility of any untoward incident due to the crowd can be avoided.

Meanwhile, social activist Ashutosh Choubey said that there are separate gates for entry and exit into the temple, but it is necessary to strictly follow this system.

He demanded that the plying of e-rickshaws around the temple should be completely stopped and the arrangement which was made during Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's visit to Vrindavan should be made throughout the year.