Sunday throng surpasses week-long figures at Mela

“It was unbelievable. At first I thought the rush would end in an hour,but all through the day there were so many people here that it was hard to see the opposite stall,” said Gopal Avasthi,salesman at a Rajasthani stall.

For the last six days,the stall owners had been unhappy with the average response the Mela generated. The Surajkund Mela started on February 1 and only 1,04,000 tickets had been sold till the counter closed on Saturday.

The Sunday story,however,was marked with different ink.

Surajkund Mela spokesperson Rajesh Joon said,“Today we sold more than 1,27,000 tickets. Though we had expected heavy rush on the weekend,what we saw today was a surprising even for us. The deployed police personnel saved the Mela today by managing the crowds and the vehicles properly.”

All the parking lots were full and the roads outside the Surajkund Mela were jammed with cars. Joon said there were more than 3,000 cars at the venue and credited the police for effective traffic management.