At least seven people died and nine were injured in a stampede that took place at around 11:30 pm at Baba Siddhnath Temple in the Makhdumpur area of Bihar's Jehanabad district on Sunday. District Magistrate Alankrita Pandey said security personnel at the temple quickly brought the situation under control.
According to a witness, the stampede took place after a brawl involving a flower seller. District Magistrate Alankrita Pandey told news agency PTI that it appears that there was a dispute among the kanwariyas over some issue which was followed by an altercation and scuffle leading to the stampede.
Manoj, the witness to the stampede at Baba Siddhnath Temple, said, "...Had the Administration worked well, the flower seller would not have picked a fight. There was a brawl. It happened right before us. So many of us were trapped there, someone pulled me out of there. Had I been stuck there for a minute or two more, I would have died."
"The incident happened due to a stampede. The Police were nowhere to be seen at the spot, they were deployed along the route...I have suffered injuries too," he told ANI.
Divakar Kumar Vishwakarma, SHO Jehanabad, said a total of seven people have died, adding that they are meeting and inquiring the family members of the deceased and those injured in the incident. "We are trying to identify the people, after this we will send the bodies for post-mortem," he told ANI.
The deceased were have been identified as Pyare Paswan (30), Nisha Devi (30), Punam Devi (30), Nisha Kumari (21), and Sushila Devi (64). The identity of one woman remains unknown, an official added.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressed grief over the incident and instructed that an ex gratia of Rs 4 lakh each be provided to the families of the deceased. The Chief Minister also directed the district administration to ensure the best possible treatment for the injured.
"The CM has instructed that an ex gratia of Rs 4 lakh each be immediately provided to the next of the kin of the deceased. Kumar has also directed the district administration to provide best possible treatment to the injured," a statement by the Chief Minister's Office said.
The Bihar stampede comes over a month after a stampede at a 'satsang' (religious congregation) in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras on July 2 killed 121 people, most of them women, as devotees suffocated to their deaths and bodies piled atop each other in the worst such tragedy in recent years.
The stampede took place at the 'satsang' of Baba Narayan Hari alias Saakar Vishwa Hari 'Bhole Baba', a former policeman who turned into a religious preacher two decades ago and gained a following, especially in western Uttar Pradesh.
The FIR in the Hathras stampede tragedy alleged that the organisers hid the actual number of devotees coming to the 'satsang' while seeking permission, did not cooperate in traffic management and hid evidence after the stampede, which broke out after people gathered there stopped to collect mud from the way the baba's vehicle was passing.
