{"id":57920,"date":"2016-08-22T17:18:41","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T00:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=57920"},"modified":"2016-08-22T17:18:58","modified_gmt":"2016-08-23T00:18:58","slug":"driver-keeps-lanka-president-waiting-as-guards-grow-tense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/08\/22\/driver-keeps-lanka-president-waiting-as-guards-grow-tense\/","title":{"rendered":"Driver keeps Lanka President waiting as guards grow tense"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Express News Service<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
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    TIRUPATI: A major security lapse came to the fore during the visit of Sri Lanka\u00a0 president Maithripala Sirisena to Tirumala on Sunday. He was forced to wait\u00a0 for 12 minutes for his car after a darshan atop the Tirumala hill, giving\u00a0 jitters to the staff of the Tiruumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD),\u00a0 especially the security.\u00a0 An inquiry has been ordered into the lapse.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 SiriSena reached Tirumala late on Saturday night for a two-day pilgrimage.<\/p>\n

    Upon arrival, the Sri Lanka president was received by TTD chairman\u00a0 Chadalwada Krishnamurthy, executive officer (EO) Sambasiva Rao, Tirupati\u00a0 joint EO Pola Bhaskar and other officials. He made a night halt at the Sri\u00a0 Padmavathi guesthouse and arrangements were made for a visit to the temple\u00a0 of Venkateshwara at Tirumala early Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

    At 3 am Sunday, the president along with his wife Jayanthi Pushpa Kumari\u00a0 Sirisena, son Daham Tharaka and other family members attended the Suprabhata\u00a0 Seva. When they came out of the sanctum sanctorium, the driver of their car\u00a0 was not in the seat.<\/p>\n

    Sirisena and his wife waited for about 12 minutes inside the car as his\u00a0 security stood guard around it. Even TTD staffers scurried around, the\u00a0 driver coolly returned from his own darshan of the deity. Immediately,\u00a0 Sirisena was driven at speed to the guest house.<\/p>\n

    At around 6.30 am, during the VIP break time, Sirisena and his family\u00a0 returned to the temple to pay obeisance to the presiding deity. He spent\u00a0 about six minutes inside the sanctum sanctorum and TTD authorities presented\u00a0 him silk clothes and pandits administered Vedaaseervachanam to the family.<\/p>\n

    The minister in waiting, Andhra Pradesh’s forest minister Bojjala\u00a0 Gopalakrishna Reddy presented the president a replica of the Ananda Nilayam\u00a0 (the dome of the garbhalayam of the temple) on behalf of the AP government.<\/p>\n

    Later, Sirisena and his family members left for Bengaluru by road and were\u00a0 scheduled to fly back to Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

    An inquiry has been ordered into the security lapse. It is learnt that the\u00a0 driver and other members of Sirisena’s retinue sought permission from the\u00a0 temple authorities for a darshan of the deity. They were reportedly\u00a0 permitted to enter the sanctum sanctorium despite the visit of the VVIP.\u00a0 Tirupati Urban superintendent of police Jayalashmi is learnt to have\u00a0 questioned the temple authorities for giving permission to drivers and other\u00a0 staff during the VVIP visit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Express News Service TIRUPATI: A major security lapse came to the fore during the visit of Sri Lanka\u00a0 president Maithripala Sirisena to Tirumala on Sunday. He was forced to wait\u00a0 for 12 minutes for his car after a darshan atop the Tirumala hill, giving\u00a0 jitters to the staff of the Tiruumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD),\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}