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‘Everything happened within mins’: Survivors recall horror
Stampede at Bhole Baba event in Uttar Pradesh leaves 116 dead, mostly women and children. Witnesses describe chaos and lack of proper exits.
At 1.45pm on Tuesday afternoon, as Suraj Pal — or Bhole Baba as he is now known in Uttar Pradesh — descended from the stage at Hathras’s Phulrai Mughalgarhi village after close to an hour-long sermon, Dharmendra Kumar watched as the crowd surged towards him. Over his two decades as an ostensible preacher, his devotees had developed the practice of picking up the sand on which he walks, called “raj” by his associates. But in the minutes that followed, Kumar saw ghastly scenes unfold before him. The ground was wet, and people began to slip and fall. The day was hot and humid, and the enclosed tent was packed far beyond its capacity. As pandemonium broke and people began to panic, many were crushed as they desperately tried to exit. At least 116 people, most of them women and children, were left dead. Among them, was Dharmendra Kumar’s 65-year-old aunt, Suraj Mukhi.
Kumar said, “As soon as his satsang ended, he came down from the stage, and people rushed towards him, breaking barricades for ‘raj’. The ground was wet, and many people slipped and fell.”
Raj Kamal, another devotee who was at the spot, said that the wet agricultural fields which had been levelled to erect tents prevented people from escaping quickly. “There was also rain in the past two days. Devotees were mostly in slippers and they fell in the mid as they either rushed towards the dais or towards the solitary exit,” he said.
Witnesses said that despite the teeming crowds, there was only one designated entry and exit in the form of one narrow path which was barricaded on both sides by bamboo sticks. “As people rushed to come out, the stampede got worse. People broke the barricades and ran into the fields to save themselves,” Kamal said.
Rachna, 17, who was attending a Bhole Baba congregation for the third time, said that with the venue packed beyond capacity, many had been standing for hours in hot and humid conditions. “Women with children were in the first few rows and they rushed towards the Baba. Volunteers tried to stop them and there was lots of pushing and shoving. Everything happened in a matter of minutes,” she said.
Ramji Lal, who had traveled to Hathras from Atrauli in Aligarh, said that he was one of those walking towards “guruji”, when he felt a push on the back. “I fell to the ground. People were running all over me, and I don’t know what happened after that,” he said. Lal was one of over hundred people injured, who was taken to Sikandara Rao Trauma Centre in Hathras.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday night confirmed that the stampede started soon after Pal ended his sermon. “We will conduct a detailed inquiry whether it was an incident or a conspiracy. I have directed Inspector General (Agra range) to conduct a probe,” he said in Lucknow. Adityanath will travel to Hathras on Wednesday.
Witnesses also said that many people were left unconscious, and lay prone at the venue for over half an hour, before the intervention of locals who took them to the Sikandara Rao health centre, seven kilomteres away, in tractors, tempos, and autorikshaws. “The first ambulance came only after 3pm and by that time we had taken most of the people to the health centre,” said Amit Kumar, a local resident.
At the ramshackle Sikandara Rao trauma centre, there was evidence of a healthcare system that had crumbled under a deluge it had never seen before. The health centre has all of four rooms. Across those rooms, on Tuesday night, lay 96 bodies — one man, 91 women, and four children.
