Delhi rly stn stampede victims: ‘We gasped for breath for an hour...bodies everywhere’

Umesh Giri's wife was among 18 killed in a New Delhi railway stampede, highlighting poor crowd management and chaos at the station.

Umesh Giri, 45, was at Lok Nayak hospital, nursing a fracture on his left foot, but paid his injury no heed — he had just received news that his wife Silam Devi was one of the 18 people killed in the stampede at New Delhi railway station on Saturday night.

An ambulance carrying New Delhi Railway Station stampede victims arrives at LNJP hospital on Saturday. (ANI)

The Kirari resident said that he and his wife had just entered the railway station — to catch a train to Prayagraj to attend the Maha Kumbh — when a crowd of people swept them into the stairway leading to platform 14.

“In no time, people fell on the staircase. There was a lot of pressure from people from both sides as people were climbing up and down the staircase. People trampled all over me and my wife. I kept asking for help but people were in a hurry to move,” he said.

“People were walking over all of us. For nearly an hour, we were gasping for breath. I kept shouting for help but no one was listening to me. I don’t know how we reached the platform from the staircase,” he added.

Criticising the arrangements at the station, Giri said, “There was not a single railway official managing the situation. Usually, when we go to Bihar for Chhath Puja, there is a huge crowd, but officials are there to direct the crowd. On Saturday, there were none.”

A few metres away, the family of Manisha Devi, 42, was anxiously asking her doctor of her latest diagnosis — the Rohtak resident broke her hip bone and sustained back injuries after a swell in the crowd pushed her onto the railway tracks.

“The crowd was uncontrollable. I held my sister and we saved ourselves but my mother was pushed towards the platform and was thrown onto the tracks. We thought we had lost her. She fell and couldn’t get up… It took 20 minutes for a railway official to come to us. I begged him to save my mother. Others were pushing each other, people were collapsing. The official helped me pick up my mother. It took us another half an hour to reach the hospital. She is still undergoing treatment,” her son Ankit Sah said.

At Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital — the children’s wing attached to Lady Hardinge Medical College — Bijwasan resident Khushi Sah, 16, was undergoing treatment at the emergency ward.

“She was not moving when I saw her. I was crying for help. I had to save myself and stick to an iron grill near the staircase. It was horrifying as everyone was pushing us. There were people who were using both their hands and hitting us with their elbows. I was almost asphyxiated. Poor Khushi was trampled by the crowd,” said the girl’s mother Sharda, whose niece Baby died in the stampede, the family’s dreams of visiting the Kumbh Mela now shattered.