Large Accidents at Dussehra celebrations have continued over the years..

Credit : Tribune

• Yesterday, the Dussehra celebrations triggered panic among scores of residents at the Dasehra ground in Sector 46 of chandigarh when the effigy of Ravana suddenly “blasted”.“All three effigies went up in flames abruptly. Some onlookers, who were standing, were so petrified with the ‘blast-like sound’ that they fell down. Several children started crying. The exit gate was congested and posed problems for those rushing out of the venue.” A DSP was the chief guest at the venue. 

• Also yesterday, Dussehra was celebrated at Dhuri railway crossing in Ludhiana (see above). People were seen roaming on the railway tracks to have a glimpse of the effigies unmindful of the lurking danger from speeding trains.

• Flouting the orders of the high court, the heritage conservation committee of nagpur was pressured by a BJP Minister this year to give permission to hold dussehra celebrations inside a monument of national importance. platforms were put up right next to the heritage structure and most other conditions for giving the permission were also flouted. 

• Early this year, a 1000 boys, aged 5-12 years, in a crammed room of a Kerala temple were subjected to smoke emanating from somewhere. Their parents had to get the polic to free them for a while so they could have a relief from the suffocating conditions. The children were part of a temple ritual which was to keep them away from their parents for a week. 

• 22 people died, and 30 were injured during a stampede on a railway overbridge in Mumbai at dussehra time in 2017. 

• Early in 2017, a fire broke out in Allahabad's Magh Mela. While no one died, all the belongings of the pilgrms got burnt. 

• In 2015, at the Kumbh Mela in Nashik, selfies were banned on days that people took ritual baths in the Godavari river. Organisers say they conducted a study that showed people took too long taking selfies. This slows down the flow of people, leading to pushing and panic.

• 33 people died when exiting from a dussehra celebration at Patna's gandhi maidan in 2014. The CM was the chief guest. A rumour that a live wire had fallen on the ground sparked a stampeded towards the only two exits that were open. The enquiry report of the incident mentioned that there were no lights at the exit gates or proper sound systems. There was no detailed crowd management plan for the event.

• In 2013, Dussehra celebrations in Ratangarh in Datia District of Madhya Pradesh were marred by the deaths of 115 people and scores injured. The enquiry reports of a retired justice, CBI (only ordered by the High Court because of a public interest litigation), and the human rights commission are not to-date in the public domain. There is only a mention of the retired justice's report being tabled in the assembly more than a year later with one havaldar being found guilty ! Some officials were suspended after the incident. Among those officials, atleast the collector of Datia district was reinstated in his post as the MP Government never followed up with a chargesheet. 

• There were only 10 policemen on duty to manage a crowd of pilgrims 1 lakh strong. Many press reports at the time recounted that police took bribes from tractor trolley operators to let them in into a no-traffic zone, in the midst of a single road choc-a-bloc with pilgrims headed over to a bridge over the Sindh river. When pilgrims protested, the police lathi-charged them, resulting in a crush. A rumour about the bridge they were on, collapsing, led to a stampede. 

• There were press reports with names of people who said the police threw bodies as well as live people off the bridge into the Sindh river (or some jumped by themselives), to bring down the official count of the dead. The bodies from sindh river were never reported to be recovered from the river although some people, who were alive, made it out. That is why it was suspected that the actual count of dead people in the tragedy was far greater. 

• There was no prior arrangement for primary medical aid and even drinking water, the Congress alleged, adding top district officials had not reached the spot even seven hours after the tragedy.

• Earlier in 2013, 37 people died at Allahabad railway station on their way home from the Kumbh Mela. Officials said some 30 million visited the site that day, considered the most auspicious day to bathe in the river.There was a crush as thousands waited to board trains home. Delayed trains had led to massive overcrowding and the collapse of a footbridge. Up to 100 million pilgrims and Hindu ascetics were expected to attend the two-month long Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest religious festival. It is held every 12 years in a temporary city covering an area larger than Athens, spread over a wide sandy river bank in Allahabad.

• More than 100 worshippers were killed in a stampede in January 2011 in Kerala, while 224 pilgrims died in September 2008 at a temple in Rajasthan. In 2008 also, 145 people died when a panicking crowd pushed people over a ravine near the Himalayan temple of Naina Devi.

• 57 people had died at Ratangarh in Datia District in MP in 2006 in dussehra celebrations when they were swept away in the river's waters. The enquiry report of that tragedy too was never made public by the same government of shiv raj chouhan. Projected as Modi's rival to the PM post in the run up to the 2014 elections, he surely is Modi's equal in some respects atleast !

• A fire swept through parts of the Shabri Kumbh Mela in Dangs, Gujarat, in early 2006, but was quickly brought under control by fire tenders stationed for the mela.  

• There are many many other incidents I can see on the net even in the last few years. The point is, few public gatherings in our country which are of a religious nature, are organized with any sense of safety for and services to, the pilgrims.