MOST VICTIMS OF INDIA STAMPEDE ARE WOMEN, DEATH TOLL RISES TO 121

By Shakir Husain

NEW DELHI, July 3 (Bernama) -- Most victims of Tuesday's stampede at a Hindu gathering in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh are women, according to a list of the dead.

About 250,000 had gathered at a village in the Hathras district's Sikandra Rao area, some 180 km from New Delhi, to listen to a spiritual guru popularly known as "Bhole Baba" in a religious discourse known in Hindi as "satsang".

Regional officials confirmed the death of at least 121 people, including children, and their bodies were sent to the cities of Agra, Aligarh, Etah and Hathras for autopsy.

Many victims were being treated in the nearby cities, including at Aligarh Muslim University's Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College hospital.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Tuesday the stampede occurred in the afternoon when followers rushed to touch the preacher after the sermon had ended.

Adityanath travelled to Hathras on Wednesday and visited the injured in hospital.

The government announced a compensation of 200,000 rupees (RM11,300) to the kin of each deceased, while every injured person would receive an amount of 50,000 rupees.

Eyewitness accounts published by local media suggest there was a huge crowd and the situation became chaotic when people rushed to leave the meeting venue.

Many women and children fell and were crushed by the surging crowds.

"There was a deep pit there when some people, trying to take Baba's blessings, fell into it, and a stampede broke out. People kept passing by and trampling on each other. Many people died after falling into the pit," one attendee said in a report on the Times of India website.

While more than 250,000 people participated in the event, the organisers expected about 80,000 to turn up.

"Bhole Baba," also known as Narayan Sakar Hari, whose real name is Suraj Pal Singh, took voluntary retirement from his police job in 1997 to become a spiritual guru, local media reported on Wednesday.

Opposition politicians said the administration should have made adequate arrangements knowing that it was a large gathering.

"The tragedy took place due to the negligence of the government and administration," Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said.

The Hathras stampede is one of the worst such disasters in India.

In September 2008, more than 220 people died in a stampede outside a temple at Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur in Rajasthan state, while in August of the same year, at least 146 people were killed at the Naina Devi temple in Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh.

More than 340 devotees were killed at the Mandhardevi temple in the western state of Maharashtra in 2005.

At least 115 people were killed in a stampede at the Ratangarh temple during Navratri festivities in Madhya Pradesh in November 2013.

In more recent disasters, 36 people died when the roof covering an old stepwell in a temple collapsed during a ritual marking the Hindu festival of Ram Navami in Indore in Madhya Pradesh state.

-- BERNAMA