{"id":1186,"date":"2008-01-24T02:37:18","date_gmt":"2008-01-23T18:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/religion\/2008\/01\/24\/samy-estimate-one-million-people\/"},"modified":"2008-02-04T23:47:15","modified_gmt":"2008-02-04T15:47:15","slug":"samy-estimate-one-million-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/religion\/2008\/01\/24\/samy-estimate-one-million-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Samy estimate one million people"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I seriously doubt there were 500,000 since morning to noon. Since I was there from 10am till 2pm, I think maybe 100,000 is more likely. Unlike previous years were there will be terrible crowd everywhere in the temple compound, this time the crowd were only from about 20 meters from the stairs till the inside of the cave. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Shops were lacking visitors, the ferris wheel was running without customers.<\/p>\n<p>Parking was not hard to find unlike previous years.<\/p>\n<p>Plus, there were many, many foreign workers from India. I think maybe 3 or 4 out of every 10 people were foreigners\/non-Hindus\/Indians.<\/p>\n<p>DLS food <a href=\"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/religion\/2008\/01\/24\/less-batu-caves-crowd-leaves-dls-with-extra-food\/\">leftover<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Not to mention, <a href=\"http:\/\/picasaweb.google.com\/lifethrulens\/ThaipusamAtBatuCavesI\">the gloomy faces of MIC leaders<\/a>  which tells it all.<\/p>\n<p>hmm&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>MIC = 0, Makkal Sakthi = 1.2 million (last year crowd) &#8211; 500,000 (if follow SV&#8217;s estimate) = 700,000<\/p>\n<h3><u>Samy expects over one million to attend Thaipusam at Batu Caves this evening<\/u><\/h3>\n<p>BERNAMA<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nst.com.my\/Current_News\/NST\/Wednesday\/NewsBreak\/20080123153602\/Article\/index_html\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nst.com.my\/Current_News\/NST\/Wednesday\/NewsBreak\/20080123153602\/Article\/semailpull_html\" target=\"_self\"><\/a><\/p>\n<table align=\"right\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"60\">\n<tr>\n<td><script>function fbs_click() {u=location.href;t=document.title;window.open(\\'http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=\\'+encodeURIComponent(u)+\\'&t=\\'+encodeURIComponent(t),\\'sharer\\',\\'toolbar=0,status=0,width=626,height=436\\');return false;<\/script><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>KUALA LUMPUR, WED:<br \/>\nCalls made to Hindus through short messaging service (SMS) to boycott Thaipusam festival in Batu Caves fizzled out as hundreds of thousands of devotees thronged the Sri Subramaniaswamy Temple here to pay their annual homage to Lord Muruga.<\/p>\n<table align=\"right\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"3\" width=\"200\"><\/table>\n<p>As of noon not less than 500,000 people, both locals and foreigners, flocked to the temple to fulfil their vows, MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu said.<\/p>\n<p>He said the SMSes sent out by irresponsible elements, including instigating the devotees to hurl slippers at him when he addresses the crowd, also did not materialise.<\/p>\n<p>The Works Minister expects the crowd to swell to about 1.1 million by this evening.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think religious people will listen to naughty SMSes,&#8221; he told reporters when asked to comment on the crowd turnout at Batu Caves following the SMSes calling on the Hindus to boycott the Thaipusam festival in Batu Caves.<br \/>\n<center>    <\/center> Describing the SMS senders as &#8220;people of low-quality mind&#8221;, Samy Vellu said these sort of vicious SMSes would not dampen the spirit of the Indians to be steadfast in their belief and conviction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I seriously doubt there were 500,000 since morning to noon. Since I was there from 10am till 2pm, I think maybe 100,000 is more likely. Unlike previous years were there will be terrible crowd everywhere in the temple compound, this time the crowd were only from about 20 meters from the stairs till the inside [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,10],"tags":[38,27,37],"class_list":["post-1186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indian","category-religion","tag-batu-caves","tag-protest","tag-thaipusam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}