The Andhra Pradesh government on Thursday suspended two officials, including a deputy superintendent of police, and transferred three others a day after after six persons were killed in a stampede in Tirupati, The Indian Express reported.

The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, the trust that runs the Sri Venkateswara temple, had set up counters at about 90 locations to issue tokens starting Thursday for a special darshan during the Vaikunta Ekadasi festival, celebrated for 10 days and attended by lakhs of devotees.

On Wednesday thousands of devotees gathered to collect tokens for the special darshan at the Bairagipatteda area. The stampede was triggered when the gate was opened to let a woman who was feeling unwell go out. However, the crowd pushed in all at once.

On Thursday, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu told reporters that Deputy Superintendent of Police Ramana Kumar and K Haranath Reddy, the director of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams’ Sri Venkateswara Gosamrakshanasala, had been suspended, The Hindu reported.

While Kumar had been supervising the crowd control and security in the Bairagipatteda area, Reddy was found to be responsible for deciding where the ticket counters had to be set up, according to The Indian Express.

Naidu also announced the suspension of Superintendent of Police L Subbarayudu, and the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams’ Joint Executive Officer for Health and Education M Gouthami and Chief Vigilance and Security Officer S Sreedhar.

All three were suspended for failing to ensure coordination between the trust and the civil administration, The Hindu reported.

The chief minister said that he had also ordered a judicial investigation into the incident.

Some of the locations where the ticket counters were set up were not suited to handle large crowds, Naidu told reporters, adding that officials from the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams and the police had taken their jobs casually.

There was a failure at “various levels”, The Indian Express quoted him as saying.

“Deputy SP Ramana Kumar displayed utter lack of responsibility when he asked the gates at Padmavathi Park to be opened to evacuate a woman suffering from breathing problems,” Naidu said. “He is a senior police officer. He should have assessed the situation better.”

He added: “What happened was that devotees who were at the back thought the gates had been opened and tickets were being issued, and they tried to rush out, which caused the stampede. Any mistake, done knowingly or unknowingly, which results in deaths, cannot be forgiven.”

Following the incident, the Tirupati East Police registered two first information reports in the matter.

The state government announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs 25 lakh to the families of those killed in the stampede