Kolkata: Crackdown on crowd-puller Puja pandal as lakhs swamp Sreebhumi – Times of India

KOLKATA: Taking a lesson from the fiasco that led to visitors being banned from entering the pandal from Ashtami night, officials of Sreebhumi Sporting in Lake Town have said they will henceforth lay more emphasis on crowd control measures and start planning for it in close coordination with police seven to eight months prior to the Puja.
“From next year, we will plan the visitors’ entry-exit from March. That will give us and the police enough time to plan crowd dispersal movement in a much better manner than what has happened this year.

We will also speak to experts in crowd management,” said Sujit Bose, state fire minister and chief patron of the puja committee, which had been a showstopper this year with a pandal inspired from World’s tallest building — Burj Khalifa in Dubai — drawing huge crowds till cops stopped visitors’ entry.
Sudipto Kumar, secretary of Deshapriya Park Puja Committee that had met with a similar fate in 2015 when cops banned visitors at their pandal from Panchami following a stampede-like situation, said they had since changed the way they held the Puja.
“From that year onwards, we have scaled down the Puja and spent close to half of our Puja budget in barricading and crowd prevention measures. Further, we also sit with the traffic police department in Lalbazar six months prior to the Puja with details of our theme,” said Kumar.
The Sreebhumi puja in Lake Town had begun drawing huge crowds from Tritiya with lakhs of revellers making a beeline to view the pandal, violating all Covid norms and throwing traffic movement on VIP Road out of gear. The attraction was the 145-foot pandal.
But, following complaints from multiple corners, first from the Kolkata airport on the pandal’s use of laser lights that were distracting pilots during the crucial landing sequence and then from locals and a section of administration who were miffed with the overcrowding that had led to people falling and even getting injured, cops issued a shutdown order to the organisers on Ashtami night. The laser show was shut down after Saptami.
The instruction to shut down the pandal was issued around three hours after Bidhannagar Police commissionerate forced the organisers to switch off the pandal’s lights to deter visitors.
“On Ashtami, the crowd was such that we first shut the lights, then closed all three channels leading to the pandal for some time. But the crowd started jostling while waiting for hours, resulting in a stampede-like situation. The pedestrian subways were also made one-way for use by people exiting the pandal. But nothing worked and we had to permanently stop visitors,” said a senior officer of Bidhannagar city police.