Sabarimala: With only a few days left for Mandala Puja, the ritual marking the conclusion of the 41-day-long first leg of the annual pilgrimage season, the Lord Ayyappa hill shrine is witnessing a heavy rush of pilgrims.

Serpentine queues were witnessed for the third consecutive day on Wednesday as the devotees waited in line for up to 16 hours to ascend the 18 holy steps leading to the temple and perform darshan. The influx also kept the police on their toes. The virtual queue bookings for the day, meanwhile, were just below 80,000.

When the temple was closed on Tuesday night, the queue of devotees had extended up to Sabaripeedom. Besides these devotees, those who were waiting at Pampa and got stuck in vehicles due to blocking of traffic en route to Pampa, etc made their way to the temple early on Wednesday. They were soon joined in by those who had booked virtual queue slots for the day, leading to a heavy rush.

As of Wednesday evening, the rush to ascend the 18 holy steps extended to the top portion of Appachimedu. As the stretch from Appachimedu to Pampa is in a steep decline, pilgrims are not allowed to stand in a queue along this route. Instead, they are blocked at Pampa itself.

The police, meanwhile, regulated the entry of vehicles from Erumely till 10.30 in the morning as part of managing the crowd at Sabarimala. However, no traffic regulations were implemented along the Pathanamthitta-Laha-Plappally route during the day. The virtual queue bookings from Friday till December 25 stand well above 80,000 on all days.

The Thanka Anki ritual, a key event performed as part of the Mandala puja, is on 26 while the Mandala Puja falls the next day. The bookings for these two days are relatively low.

Earlier, similar long queues were witnessed for a week from December 7 as the crowd management system went haywire. The Kerala Police and the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) blame each other. Quick action measures were then implemented following the intervention of the High Court, following which the situation was brought under control by December 12.