GUWAHATI, May 22: For the 6,000-odd residents of the temple township of Kamakhya, the holiest of the Tantric shrines in the country perched atop the legendary Neelachal Hills here, the visit of Prime Minister I K Gujral to the Mother Goddess turned out to be one of their worst experiences.

Gujral, who visited the Golden Temple in Amritsar in an open jeep last month, wanted to repeat the same performance here too.

But the security agencies were too wary to let him do so. After all, only last year that ULFA militants had gunned down an army colonel and a major in the temple premises.

``We wish VVIPs like the Prime Minister do not come to Kamakhya,'' said Ashok Kumar Sharma, a shop-keeper in the temple campus, who runs his seven-member family by selling bangles, sindur, agarbattis and earthen lamps.

The temple campus was virtually under the seige of the security forces from two days ahead. ``He came only on Tuesday morning, but it was virtual curfew here from Sunday itself,'' Narayan Sharma, a panda stated.

The police, backed up by the army, ordered the residents of the temple township to return home by eight pm on Sunday. The same was repeated on Monday too. And when finally Gujral's motorcade drove up the five-km winding road to the Neelachal Hills, not a soul was allowed to venture out outdoors.

The residents were ordered on Monday to send off any extra person they had in their premises, while the police even took away the keys of all the shops there on Monday evening, returning them to the bonafide shop-keepers only after the Prime Minister completed his pilgrimage and drove down back to Raj Bhavan the next day.

``The police even took away the keys of the main gate to the sanctum sanctorum and the early morning puja had to be almost called off,' said an official of the Kamakhya temple trust.

The houses close to the main temple were searched and security personnel with LMGs (light machine guns) were placed atop every building giving it a war-like look, and scaring away even the thousands of pigeons residing in the temple complex, the official complained.

Hundreds of office-goers and school-children too missed their offices and schools, and the daily-wage earners like the flower-vendors and chappal-keepers were deprived of their earnings for almost two days.

``It is strange, because this is not the first time that a Prime Minister has come to pay obeisance to Mother Kamakhya, Indira Gandhi was a regular visitor, Rao had also come, and the security harassment was not like this even when President Shanker Dayal Sharma came here three years ago,'' the temple trust official said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.