Hyderabad: Chilkur priest hails TTD decision

Chilkur: Chief Priest of Balaji temple CS Rangarajan on Thursday welcomed the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) Board's decision to close the Lord Venkateswara Swamy temple to devotees as a precautionary measure to control the spread of Coronavirus.

"The decision seems to have been taken after an emergency meeting was called on Thursday by the TTD Board chairperson YV Subba Reddy. It is learnt that a devotee from Maharashtra had taken ill with fever, cough and cold inside the temple and had to be shifted to hospital," he said.

Though for the last few days the TTD has been asking devotees to avoid coming to the temple, the situation now is such that the Temple Darshan has to be stopped. The daily puja rituals would be carried out by the archakas as per the authorities.

The patient who is now in Sri Venkateswara Ruia Hospital had come along with a group of about 100 pilgrims who had visited several other temples across the country. His sample has been sent for testing to confirm whether he was infected with Coronavirus.

The concern was that before being detected at Tirumala temple, the man could have exposed himself to many pilgrims here and elsewhere. All of them may need to be identified and monitored.

"We at Chilkur had taken the decision of suspending Darshan with a heavy heart but we were worried more about famous temples where the devotee congregation is in lakhs," the priest said.

To stop community transmission of the deadly virus, devotees are well advised to stop taking up collective pilgrimages.