Lord Balabhadra's chariot Taladhawaja reaches Gundicha temple

Puri, Jul 4 (UNI) Taladhawaja, the chariot of Lord Balabhadra reached its destination, the Gundicha temple this evening.

The pulling of the chariot of Devi Subhadra's chariot Devi dalan and Lord Jaganath's chariot was suspended by the authorities after the evening.

The pulling of the two chairots would be conducted tomorrow.

The famous annual Car festival was marred by a tragic incident as six devotees were killed and around 50 injured in a stampede during pulling of Jagannath Rath here today.

Police said the incident occurred at Kansaripati in front of the SBI office close to the Taladhawaja, at around 1200 hours.

At the time the Pahandi Bije of Devi Subhadra was proceeding, a large number of devotees tried to have a darshan of the deities.

But the passage at the point was only four to five feet wide--which was too narrow to hold such a huge crowd.

As the crowd swelled, the authorities tried to dismantle the barricade to allow free passage of devotees and a chaotic situation was created. The security personnel deployed at the site could not control the crowd leading to the stampede.

The injured were taken to the district headquarters hospital here where six were declared brought dead. Of the six, three were females. Two of the deceased were sisters.

Police have identified the two sisters as Pravasini Parija (51) of Delta Colony Bhubaneswar and Binodini Patnaik (48) of Baunsgadia, Nayagarha.

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