At least 121 people were killed in a stampede at a religious gathering in central India’s Uttar Pradesh state on Tuesday, police said, as an investigation into the organizers was launched and the Hindu guru who hosted the event disappeared. The Uttar Pradesh government ordered a judicial probe into the stampede, and the state police force registered a case against the organizers. The Uttar Pradesh police said they were looking for the Hindu preacher, Suraj Pal, known by his followers as “Bhole Baba,” who hosted the gathering. It was widely reported that the preacher went into hiding soon after the stampede. Pal, in his late 50s, is a former police officer who quit his job 20 years ago to turn to preaching. His popularity has grown over the years, and he’s held periodic public gatherings that draw thousands of devotees to seek his blessings.
Relatives and villagers in Sokna village mourn those who died in a stampede, during a cremation ceremony on July 3, 2024 in Hathras, India, after at least 121 people were confirmed killed in a devastating stampede at a religious event in Hathras, in India’s densely populated Uttar Pradesh state the previous day.
The stampede occurred during a “satsang,” a prayer meeting hosted by Pal in the village of Rati Bhanpur in the Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras area. Thousands of his devotees showed up to listen to his address, crowding under tents to avoid the harsh sun, before there was a panic and people started running. The Uttar Pradesh Police force confirmed in a statement on Wednesday that at least 121 people were killed in the crush.
It was not immediately clear what caused the panic, but some eyewitnesses told local media outlets that the stampede started when the event ended and people rushed to leave.
Videos shared widely on social media showed dozens of bodies, mostly women, being brought to regional hospitals. The top official in Uttar Pradesh state, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, ordered an investigation into the incident as residents started voicing anger and allegations that proper arrangements had not been made for the large gathering, which was held amid hot and humid conditions. Senior police officer Shalabh Mathur said Tuesday that “temporary permission” had been granted for the religious event.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Uttar Pradesh state government was providing all possible help to the victims.
Opposition Congress party leader Pawan Khera accused the state government, which is run by Modi’s Bhartiya Janata Party, of being unprepared for the event. He said the hospitals where the injured were sent didn’t have enough doctors or facilities to treat them. Stampedes at religious events in India are not uncommon, as the gatherings are mostly managed privately, and often without adequate safety or crowd control measures put in place. One of India’s deadliest stampedes at a religious event was in 2005, when more than 340 people died at the Mandhardevi temple in the western state of Maharashtra. More than 250 people died in another stampede at Rajasthan state’s Chamunda Devi temple in 2008. In the same year, more than 160 people died in a stampede at a religious gathering at the Naina Devi temple in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh.
More than 100 people, most of them women and children, died Tuesday in a stampede at a crowded religious event in northern India, according to local officials, in the country’s deadliest such incident in over a decade. The circumstances that led to the stampede were unclear, but according to statements by witnesses and local officials to local television news channels, it appeared to be a combination of sweltering heat and religious fervor. Ashish Kumar, district magistrate of Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh, a state in northern India, told local television reporters that the “incident took place when people were leaving the congregation due to excess stuffiness toward the end of the event.” The district’s inspector general, Shalabh Mathur, told television reporters that 116 people died in the stampede.
The temperature in the area hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and humidity levels reached 77 percent, pushing the heat index past 110. The religious congregation was led by a local Hindu preacher in a tented, open-air venue with women packed together singing and waving their hands above their heads, according to videos of the scene and descriptions of the event by eyewitnesses to local media outlets. Eyewitnesses told television reporters that the stampede broke out when the preacher was leaving the venue. Devotees rushed toward the exit to get a closer view of him while many were prostrated on the ground to seek his blessings, they said. Chaitra V, a senior local official who oversees the districts where the stampede took place, told the Aaj Tak news channel that while there was adequate space at the event and the proper permits had been obtained, people got “stuck in the sludge” while they fled the venue toward “a source of water to save themselves from the heat.” The injured and dead were taken to hospitals in Hathras and neighboring Etah district.
Speaking from the hospital in Etah district, Bablu Kumar said both of his aunts were caught in the stampede. The 38-year-old and his brother rushed from their village two hours away but got trapped in a traffic jam leading into the area. When they reached the scene, they immediately found the body of one aunt but were still frantically searching for the second among the rows of bodies. “There are lines of bodies, numbered. There is no one to explain what happened,” he told The Washington Post in a telephone interview. “Why did they allow so many people to gather if they didn’t have the appropriate facilities? It’s a bad situation here. The government should never let this happen again.” The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, expressed condolences for the victims in a post on X. “Instructions have been given to the concerned officials to conduct relief and rescue operations … and to provide proper treatment to the injured,” he wrote. He also announced a compensation of $2,400 for the families of the deceased and $600 for each person injured. Prime Minister Narendra Modi interrupted a speech to Parliament to address the incident, saying: “I want to assure everyone that the victims will be helped in every possible way.”
But Dinesh, who goes by one name, said the government can’t do anything about the loss of his mother, as he prepared to take her body back from the site. Two of his other relatives who sustained minor injuries at the event were traveling back with him. His mother, Meera Devi, began traveling to see the preacher over the last year, but Dinesh said he had been concerned this event in particular would be too crowded, given the sizable local advertising. “I told her not to go in the morning, but she didn’t listen,” he said. “I don’t even know if 50 people ran over her or 100.” The event was hosted by a local preacher named Narayan Sakar Hari, whose name translates to god incarnate. In videos from past congregations, he is seen on a thronelike seat wearing a suit and tie, explaining his ostensibly miraculous powers. “I go to temples, churches and mosques. I go wherever people seek me,” he said in one video. In another, he rolls his eyes backward, throws his microphone offstage and lifts up one palm toward his devotees.
The stampede is among India’s deadliest in recent years; fatal crushes often occur at religious events and political rallies here. A stampede at an event at a temple in India in 2013 killed at least 110 people. This summer in India has seen record-breaking heat, killing almost 100 people so far, including election officials, according to Reuters. Northern India has been hit particularly hard, with peak summer temperatures here soaring past 120 degrees.
Thousands of people at a religious gathering in India rushed to leave a makeshift tent, setting off a stampede Tuesday that killed at least 116 people and injured scores, officials said. It was not immediately clear what triggered the panic following an event with a Hindu guru known locally as Bhole Baba. Local news reports cited authorities who said heat and suffocation in the tent could have been a factor. Video of the aftermath showed the structure appeared to have collapsed. At least 116 people died, most of them women and children, said Prashant Kumar, the director-general of police in northern India’s state of Uttar Pradesh, where the stampede occurred. More than 80 others were injured and admitted to hospitals, senior police officer Shalabh Mathur said. “People started falling one upon another, one upon another. Those who were crushed died. People there pulled them out,” witness Shakuntala Devi told the Press Trust of India news agency. Relatives wailed in distress as bodies of the dead, placed on stretchers and covered in white sheets, lined the grounds of a local hospital. A bus that arrived there carried more victims, whose bodies were lying on the seats inside. Deadly stampedes are relatively common around Indian religious festivals, where large crowds gather in small areas with shoddy infrastructure and few safety measures. Police officer Rajesh Singh said there was likely overcrowding at the event in a village in Hathras district about 350 kilometers (220 miles) southwest of the state capital, Lucknow. Initial reports said organizers had permission to host about 5,000 people, but more than 15,000 came for the event by the Hindu preacher, who used to be a police officer in the state before he left his job to give religious sermons. He has led other such gatherings over the last two decades. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered condolences to the families of the dead and said the federal government was working with state authorities to ensure the injured received help. Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, called the stampede “heart-wrenching” in a post on X. He said authorities were investigating. “Look what happened and how many people have lost their lives. Will anyone be accountable?” Rajesh Kumar Jha, a member of parliament, told reporters. He said the stampede was a failure by the state and federal governments to manage large crowds, adding that “people will keep on dying” if authorities do not take safety protocols seriously enough. In 2013, pilgrims visiting a temple for a popular Hindu festival in central Madhya Pradesh state trampled each other amid fears that a bridge would collapse. At least 115 were crushed to death or died in the river. In 2011, more than 100 Hindu devotees died in a crush at a religious festival in the southern state of Kerala.
Source: CBS News, The Washington Post, Associated Press
