at least 12 dead in crowd movement in India

At least 12 people died and 13 others were injured during a crowd movement at a religious shrine on Saturday in Indian Kashmir, authorities said. The drama occurred at around 3 a.m. (9:30 p.m. GMT) while it was still dark on the road to Mata Vaishno Devi, one of the busiest Hindu shrines in northern India.

“People fell on top of each other,” said Ravinder, who gave only one name. “I helped pick up eight bodies when the ambulances arrived after about half an hour. I’m lucky to be alive, but I still tremble at the memory of what I saw. A representative of the authorities explained that there had been a rush of people wanting to make special prayers on the occasion of the New Year, but this was not confirmed by other sources.

Extremely saddened by the loss of lives due to a stampede at Mata Vaishno Devi Bhawan. Condolences to the bereaved families. May the injured recover soon. Spoke to JK LG Shri @manojsinha_ Ji, Ministers Shri @DrJitendraSingh From the, @nityanandraibjp Ji and took stock of the situation.

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 1, 2022

“Poor management”

Indian towns and villages have millions of Hindu shrines, especially in the isolated regions of the Himalayas or in the southern jungles. Some are extremely important pilgrimage sites, and the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invested heavily in improving infrastructure for easier access. Before the coronavirus pandemic, around 100,000 worshipers visited the Hindu temple of Mata Vaishno Devi every day, about sixty kilometers from Jammu, the winter capital of Indian Kashmir. This figure has since been limited to 25,000 by the authorities but, according to witnesses and the media, this gauge has been exceeded on several occasions.

Two stampedes in temples in August and September 2008 left more than 370 dead among Hindu worshipers in Himachal Pradesh (North) and Rajasthan (West). Others, in January 2011, among a crowd of pilgrims on a mountain road in Kerala (South West) then two years later, in October 2013, on a bridge near a temple in Madhya Pradesh, each had done more than a hundred victims. Rescue operations began quickly and the injured, some of whom are believed to be in serious condition, were taken to hospital. Videos posted on social networks show ambulances equipped with flashing lights going in the middle of the night to hospitals.

To reach the shrine, which is open 24 hours a day, people travel to the nearby town of Katra, then climb about 15 km on foot or by pony – there is also a helicopter service – until the entrance to the cave, where they often have to wait for hours. Ravinder, who testified, explained that the stampede occurred at a place where huge crowds of people descending from the shrine meet those going up. He estimates there were at least 100,000 people.

“Nobody checked the registration forms of the faithful. I’ve been there many times, but I’ve never seen so many people, ”he said. “It was only when some of us managed to lift a corpse with our hands that people could see (what was happening) and make room to move the bodies,” he added. . Another witness, who came from Ghaziabad, near New Delhi, with a group of about ten people, described “mismanagement”. “If they knew there were so many people, they should have stopped people,” the man said, without giving his name. The Prime Minister said on Twitter “extremely saddened by the loss of human life”.