10 KILLED IN STAMPEDE AT INDIAN RELIGIOUS FEASTIVALS
NEW DELHI, India – It seems death as a result in stampede is
very much synonym with Indian religious tragedy. In fact an act of suicidal to some.Stampedes at religious festivals are common in India where massive crowds often overwhelm security and control measures.
Early yesterday A stampede outside a Hindu temple killed at least 10 pilgrims in eastern 
India
with others injured in the crush of up to 150,000 people a police officer said.
India
with others injured in the crush of up to 150,000 people a police officer said.
Those sleeping in the kilometers-long queue were trampled as
others pushed towards the doors, SN Pradhan, the additional director general of
police in Jharkhand, said.
“Ten people including one female devotee are now confirmed
dead. Another 15 to 20 people have received injuries,” said SN Pradhan,
additional director general of police in Jharkhand state where the accident
occurred.
- Last month, 27 people died in southern India as tens of thousands of pilgrims rushed to bathe in the Godavari river during a festival.
- Last October, 32 people died at a festival in Bihar state.
Source: AFP, Al Jazeera
STAMPEDE AT INDIAN'S HINDU TEMPLE KILLED 63 PEOPLE
KUNDA, India – Hundreds of grieving relatives buried and cremated their wives, mothers and children Friday as police opened a criminal negligence case into a stampede at a Hindu temple that killed 63 people.The tragedy erupted Thursday when poor villagers, mainly women and children, scrambled for free food and clothing being given away at a ceremony at the temple in the small town of Kunda, on the northern plains of India's Uttar Pradesh state.
Source: AP
- On Friday, the nearby villages were shrouded in grief.
- In Piranagar, the bodies of two sisters, 8-year-old Vandana and 12-year-old Sanjana, were wrapped in white sheets and placed on slabs of ice in their small house until their father could return home from his job ironing clothes in the distant city of Mumbai.Their mother, Bimla Devi, cried nearby among weeping relatives and neighbors.
- "We knew that we would get an offering so we went," said their 15-year-old sister, Khushboo, who had gone to the temple with the girls and their mother. "Then we felt people starting to push us, and people started falling on top of us. In this madness, my two sisters died."
- Hundreds of people gathered on the banks of the Ganges River, which devout Hindus regard as sacred, as families laid at least 10 bodies on wooden funeral pyres, cremated them and scattered their ashes.
- In the village of Kazipur Maharajganj, mourners chanted religious hymns as they accompanied 48-year-old Phool Chand Saroj, a poor farmer who lost his mother and two children in the stampede. Saroj's wife, who he believed had also died, was found to be alive overnight. The bodies were carried to nearby fields for burial.
- Authorities accused the organizers of failing to take adequate security measures and opened a criminal negligence case against the temple management, Superintendent of Police S.M. Mishra said.
- Relatives complained organizers should have done a better job of controlling the crowds. Ashok Kumar, a local government official, said the temple had not asked permission to hold the event.
- Rajnish Puri, a spokesman for the Jagat Kripalu Parishat trust that runs the temple, said he had informed local authorities about the event last Saturday, telling them they expected large numbers of people.
- Deadly stampedes are relatively common at temples in India, where large crowds. Sometimes hundreds of thousands of people gather in tiny areas with no safety measures or crowd control.
- In 2008, more than 145 people died in a stampede at a remote Hindu temple at the foothills of the Himalayas.
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