Thousands of people gathered at Thatchankurichi village in Tamil Nadu's Pudukottai district on Sunday to watch and participate in the first Jallikattu festival of the season, while 74 people were injured in the bull-taming sport. Pudukottai tamer Yogeshwaran clinched first prize after tackling 17 bulls.
Hundreds of bulls were brought to Thatchankurichi village in Gandarvakottai taluk on mini freight carriers, while a heavy police posse was present to regulate and control the crowd that thronged the venue. The festival was to be held on January 6 but was postponed by a couple of days due to some security reasons.
As many as 485 bulls were let off to the field one after the other and the tamers tried to tackle and control them in a marked area filled with coir pith. The tamers had to produce a negative RT-PCR test report taken a day before for participating in the tournament.
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The bulls had also undergone dope tests before they were allowed to march to the 'Vadivasal' or entry point to the ground. A 20-member medical team was deployed at the venue and a fleet of '108' Ambulances was deployed to rush the injured to the nearby Thanjavur Medical College Hospital.
The Jallikattu was declared open by state Ministers S Raghupathy and Siva V Meyyanathan with District Collector, Kavitha Ramu administering the oath to the tamers and handing over t-shirts to them.
Padukottai has been playing the opener of the season for over years. Padukottai tamer Yogeshwaran secured the first prize for taming 17 bulls and a bull owned by Rajkumar won first prize, said a TNIE report. Former Minister C Vijay Bhaskar also took part in the opener event and won a cycle and a bed for his two bulls.
(With IANS inputs)