18 hours Ago By Kapil Dixit and Rajiv Mani
PRAYAGRAJ: At least 30 pilgrims died and over 60 were injured in a stampede on Akhara Marg early Wednesday after a rush of visitors converging on Sangam for a dip in the opening hours of Maha Kumbh's 'mauni amavasya' - the most auspicious period in the 45-day event's calendar - led to barricades collapsing and opened the gateway to chaos for close to an hour. The 1-2am tragedy capped a crowd management nightmare, marked by over 12 crore pilgrims swamping the Maha Kumbh area over the past two days leading to mauni amavasya. Nearly 5.
5 crore had taken a dip in the waters of the Sangam by late Tuesday, according to official data. As the night wore on, the congregation only grew. Witnesses said some pilgrims started climbing over the barricades on Akhara Marg in their eagerness to reach the Sangam nose, causing these to collapse.
The stream of people behind them approaching the Sangam Ram Ghat immediately rushed forward, trampling pilgrims sitting or lying on the ground on the other side of where the barricades stood in anticipation of "Brahma muhurt" (break of dawn). As ambulance sirens rent the night air, security personnel and rescue workers were seen carrying many of the injured on stretchers to waiting vehicles. Blankets, bags and footwear lay strewn across the stampede site.
A 50-year-old woman from MP's Chhatarpur district was among those killed. Her daughter, 20, was critically injured. Hukum Bai Lodhi was in a group of 14 from Sunwaha village that had travelled 400km to Prayagraj.
Sarpanch Chatur Singh, who led the pilgrims from Sunwaha, said it took workers nearly two hours to find Hukum Bai's body as the crowd kept surging. Her daughter Deepa was rescued and taken to a local hospital. Cops Deny VIP Protocols Led To Slackness In Crowd Control Four of the dead were pilgrims from Karnataka's Belagavi.
An injured woman, Sarojini, said she and the rest of the group were awaiting their turn to take a dip in Sangam when an avalanche of feet drove everyone to the ground. "I don't know how I survived in the darkness," she said. Official sources said the authorities chose to withhold the official casualty figure until Wednesday evening to avert panic among the crowd of devotees already in the mela area.
CM Yogi Adityanath, who arrived at the site within an hour and monitored the situation through the night, turned emotional while revealing that 30 people had died. He declared ex gratia of Rs 25 lakh each to the families of the deceased and instituted a judicial probe by a three-member committee led by former HC judge Harsh Kumar. Retired IPS officer V K Gupta and ex-IAS officer B K Singh are the other members.
Police will conduct a separate probe. "What happened here is heart-wrenching, and a lesson. There is a need to go into the details of how it happened despite all the arrangements in place," Adityanath said.
"PM Narendra Modi called four times to inquire about the rescue effort. I urge pilgrims not to pay heed to rumours." Akhara Parishad chief Ravindra Puri initially announced that the second Amrit Snan had been cancelled.
At the CM's intervention, all 13 akharas went for Amrit Snan around 2.30pm instead of the scheduled 5am start. "I spoke to the Akhara Parishad heads and other seers, including Maha Mandaleshwars.
They politely agreed to let devotees take a dip first," Adityanath said. Undeterred by the stampede, more than 7.6 crore people took the dip at Sangam during the Mauni Amavasya Amrit Snan by 8.
30 pm on Wednesday. With this, nearly 27.6 crore devotees went for 'snan' in just 16 days during the ongoing Maha Kumbh, surpassing the previous record of 24 crore pilgrims in 2019 Kumbh.
As per the data released by mela authorities, devotees took the dip at different temporary ghats built on the banks of the Ganga over a stretch of 12km. Nearly 2.8 crore devotees had taken the dip by 8am.
The number swelled to over 5 crore by 2pm. Vehicles were stopped far away from the city to keep the situation under control and devotees were sent to ghats via a longer route. But the pilgrims were undeterred by the news of the stampede and route diversions put in place by the administration following the tragedy.
They walked long distances for the dip. All roads leading to the mela area witnessed a heavy inflow of devotees, so much so that the entire stretch of a road was not visible at several points. Since early hours of Wednesday, a sea of devotees continued to move towards the mela area.
All the roads in areas such as Civil Lines, Katra Shivkuti, Kydganj, Mutthiganj and Bahadurganj remained choked with devouts. DIG Vaibhav Krishna said rescue workers moved the injured pilgrims to various hospitals, of whom 30 died. At least 25 of the dead, including one each from Assam and Gujarat, have been identified.
"A helpline (1920) has been set up to coordinate relief efforts, and hospitals have been reinforced with additional medical personnel to handle the crisis," Krishna said. On whether VIP protocols led to slackness in crowd management, the DIG said, "No VIP vehicle was allowed entry to ensure an unrestricted pilgrimage experience for the general public." Mela officer Vijay Kiran Anand confirmed this policy would continue for the upcoming Amrit Snan on Basant Panchami.
Over 27 crore people have visited Maha Kumbh since it started on Jan 13, as per official estimates. The footfall surpassed the 2019 record of 24 crore in 15 days..
