It is dark and chaotic at 11 p.m. on January 29. Vishal Gautam, 38, has been stuck in a cab in a traffic jam in Rae Bareli for seven hours since he left home in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. He is desperate to get to Prayagraj, the site of the Maha Kumbh Mela, one of the largest religious events in the world. Here, more than 135 kilometres away, official estimates say 30 people died and 60 were injured during a stampede in the early hours of January 29.
Gautam, a carpenter, whips out his phone to talk to his sobbing mother. “We have had no contact with my father since the stampede broke out,” he explains, desperately. “He has an identity card around his neck. I am trying to get there as soon as possible to find him.” He gets out of the cab and pleads with bikers to give him a lift.
Gautam’s parents, uncle, and aunt travelled to the Kumbh Mela along with more than a dozen neighbours. Gautam says he warned them about going on the day of Mauni Amavasya, considered auspicious by Hindus, as he knew there would be larger crowds than any other day of the 45-day-long festival. “But they didn’t listen,” he says.
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When the stampede broke out, the family and neighbours scattered in different directions. “My mother said that for more than three hours, they were trying to find one another. All of them eventually got reunited, except my father,” he says.
According to Vaibhav Krishna, appointed specifically to oversee the Maha Kumbh Mela, as the Deputy Inspector General, a sea of people gathered between 1 a.m. and 2. a.m. on the Akhara Marg near the Sangam nose or ghat on Mauni Amavasya to take a ritual dip (Amrit Snan) in the water. The Sangam nose refers to the strip of land at the confluence of the rivers Ganga and Yamuna and the mythical river, Saraswati.
Devotees were stopped by policemen at the Maha Kumbh Mela following a deadly stampede before the second Shahi Snan. | Photo Credit: Reuters
Uttar Pradesh officials say as the crowd swelled, pilgrims started climbing over barricades. When the structures collapsed, people rushed to the other side, trampling on others. The dead and injured were taken to medical facilities at the Maha Kumbh grounds and to hospitals in Prayagraj. The authorities released the casualty figures more than 15 hours after the stampede.
The people say VIPs and those who had paid large sums of money were given a smooth run to the banks. Many had to walk several kilometres to reach the vicinity, because there was no public transport allowed within the 40,000 hectares of the tent city set up for the Mela.
While the ritual snans (baths) were halted after the incident, they resumed on the afternoon of January 29. A helicopter showered rose petals on saints and seers leading the dip, and a swarm of people gathered at the ghats once again.
Soon after the incident, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath met the top brass of the administration and halted the incoming devotee traffic outside the Mela area. The officials urged people to bathe at any other ghat of the Ganga and not insist on going towards the Sangam nose. They also asked people not to pay attention to rumours.
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‘Total mayhem’
A day after the stampede, there is disarray and confusion at the Maha Kumbh Mela. Raj Kumar Rauniyar, a resident of Dhanusa, Nepal, offers water to his wife Nutan Devi, who is not able to move her hands ever since they got crushed in the stampede. “My mother [Kailash Devi Roniyar] is missing since the incident. We have been running from pillar to post asking the administration to locate her, but we have no news of her yet,” he says.
Roniyar is part of a group of 80 people who came from the Himalayan kingdom to take the holy dip. In the early hours of January 29, he says there was a surge of devotes at the Sangam nose.
A devotee crosses over a barricade after the stampede. | Photo Credit: Reuters
“The area was just packed with pilgrims,” recalls Roniyar. “There was no space for people who had already taken the dip, to exit. Suddenly, there was a push back. People were falling and running over one another. Members of our group ran in different directions. We ran through any space we saw. For over an hour, people were just screaming. Chants of ‘Har Har Gange’ turned to cries for help.”
The Nepalese contingent wanted to return home immediately, especially since the health of three of the women in the group had deteriorated. “But how could I go back without my mother,” asks an anguished Roniyar.
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Five hours earlier, Roniyar received what he describes as a “miracle call”. A policeman informed him that Nutan, who got separated from him during the stampede, was at a police outpost. He is hoping for another “miracle call” about his mother. The Nepalese group has visited the Motilal Nehru Medical College in Prayagraj thrice in search of her. The police have also told them to search the lost-and-found centre, where screens display the photos of missing people.
While Roniyar is hopeful, Sangeeta, 34, from Gopalganj in Bihar, is distraught. “When the stampede occurred, I tried to hold on to my mother Shivkali Devi, but I was unable to do that. She died,” she cries.
Stranded family members of devotees injured in the stampede. | Photo Credit: PTI
A constable on duty recalls the chaos. “I was asking someone to take a dip when I heard screams. I turned and saw people falling over one another. I ran for my life and stood at a watch tower for at least 20 minutes. I called for help and additional deployment,” he says.
Eyewitnesses say at least two temporary gates leading to the Sangam nose were closed, forcing pilgrims to crowd near the ones that were open. “As the gates were shut, some people collided with those coming from the other direction,” says Vijay Yadav, 42, from Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh.
Yadav says two elderly women of the seven in his group have been missing since the stampede. “I managed to run away, but the two women could not. They lost contact with us. The remaining five people were separated for at least seven hours, but they were reunited at a lost-and-found centre,” he says.
There are at least 10 lost-and-found centres at the Kumbh Mela. There is a central hub where officials oversee operations. They try to track people and reunite missing people with their families. There are hundreds of help desks, too.
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“For over four hours after the stampede, hundreds and hundreds of people went to these centres to inquire about their loved ones,” Yadav recollects. “It was total mayhem.”
At the Motilal Nehru Medical College in Prayagraj, torn sandals, water bottles, and other belongings of victims lie on the floor. Ambulances are parked close to the morgue.
Jagdev Ram from Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, has come to the morgue for the second time to search for his wife who has gone missing. “No one is telling me anything,” he says. “At the Kumbh Mela, authorities told me to go to the hospital. Here, they are telling me to go to the Kumbh Mela area. What am I supposed to do?”
A relative of a stampede victim sits outside a hospital mortuary. | Photo Credit: Reuters
At least 50 people who seem as hapless nod in agreement. A man standing next to Ram is hoping that faith will make things better. “God will not be cruel with us. We came to the Kumbh Mela for him,” he says.
The Good Samaritans
In an extraordinary gesture of hospitality, schools and religious institutions opened their doors to accommodate pilgrims.
Mohammed Anas, a businessman who lives near Anwar Complex, which is barely a few meters away from the Jhusi area of the Kumbh Mela, saw a stream of people running first towards the Sangam and then towards the highway on the night of January 29. He immediately knew that something was wrong.
“I called up the shopkeepers I knew at Anwar Complex, who are mostly Muslim. The market was opened to let people sleep in shops. We got food packets and water for them,” says Anas, who claims that some 1,500 people took shelter at the market on the nights of January 29 and 30.
Last October, the Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad, an apex body of Hindu seers and religious leaders, had announced that it would not allow “non-Sanatani” people, or those who do not believe in Sanatan Dharma, from entering or putting up stalls at the Kumbh Mela.
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Adeel Hamza, a resident of Stanley Road in Prayagraj, says he deployed 15 cars which belonged to him and his friends to help pilgrims reach railway stations and bus stands. “Many of them had lost their luggage, money, and even clothes,” he says.
Mohd Mehandi Kazmi, manager of Yadgar-e-Husaini Inter College, says he has never seen such pandemonium. “The families of our students offered food and beds to the pilgrims, who were exhausted. They have seen so much blood that many of them haven’t spoken a word to us. They just came, sat in a corner, and left after the sun rose,” he says.
Nihal Jaiswal, a trader at the Nakhas Kohna locality, says businessmen started providing langar (free food) for pilgrims.
Ajay Raj Tripathi, an LLB student of Allahabad Central University, says, “The pilgrims stayed on campus for a while and then went home.”
Angry pilgrims
Devotees allege mismanagement and claim that the people have to walk more than 10 km to reach the ghats, while VIPs drive their vehicles up to the ghats to take a dip. “I saw that a route towards Balua ghat, which had been closed, was opened by policemen for a vehicle with an Income Tax Department sticker. The crowd management was nowhere near smooth,” complains Anuradha Srivastava, a devotee from Asansol, West Bengal.
Many videos of pilgrims confronting drivers of VIP vehicles and policemen have gone viral on social media. “I saw families being taken in police jeeps towards the ghats in no-vehicle zones,” says Raj Shah from Saptari, Nepal.
Some pilgrims are also furious with the police. Debees Giri, 32, from Deoria, says his father and aunt have been missing since the day of Mauni Amavasya. Giri was part of a group of 13 people and returned home with only seven of them on January 31. “I went to different police stations to lodge an FIR for missing persons, but the police told me that the FIR will be thrown away as soon as the temporary thanas (police station) wind up after the Kumbh. Why have they put up these police stations if records are going to be discarded later,” he asks, seething.
The Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath, Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, reprimands the government for not releasing the death count for hours and keeping seers in the dark. “We wouldn’t have done the Amrit Snan had we known that our brothers have lost lives. The government disclosed the count only after all the seers had taken a dip. They cheated us,” he says.
A woman cries while searching for her missing relative at the Motilal Nehru Medical College, where bodies of the stampede victims are kept. | Photo Credit: PTI
Vibhuti Narain Rai, a retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the 1975 batch, handled the Maha Kumbh in 1989 as Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Kumbh area. He recalls that after the stampede during the Maha Kumbh in 1954, the first festival after independence, a detailed traffic plan, an emergency evacuation road map, crowd control mechanisms, and rules were put in place for the 1965 Maha Kumbh.
“The regulations said the crowd must not be allowed to stop at a particular place, unnecessary VIP/VVIP movement should not be allowed, and incoming/outgoing traffic must be separated. All these rules were grossly violated this year. VVIPs were busy taking photos, while the crowd swelled at the Sangam nose,” says Rai.
While the Uttar Pradesh administration set up 41 ghats, including eight permanent ones, to cater to the rush of pilgrims this time, the crowd gathered at the Sangam ghat, say pilgrims.
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“People moved towards the Sangam as everyone felt the holy dip was important only there,” says Srivastava. “What I learned from a visitor is that numerous signboards read ‘Sangam Ghat’ and gave directions to the spot. But that ghat has limited capacity. There should have been as many signboards to other ghats as well.”
Rai believes that the event has become too commercial. “There was a lot of publicity by the government. People from across the world were invited. The crowd is much larger than what the government can handle,” he says.
A long way home
After facing flak for the stampede, the Uttar Pradesh government has pushed for ‘zero error’ in management. Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Singh and Director General of Police Prashant Kumar conducted a review of the arrangements on January 30.
“We need to prevent excessive crowding at the Sangam nose during the upcoming Amrit Snan (scheduled on February 3; there are six such auspicious days of which three will take place in February). Multi-level barricading should be implemented to regulate the flow of devotees and the diversion plan must be strictly enforced,” Kumar said during the meeting.
Since the stampede, additional senior officers have been deployed at the Maha Kumbh, claim the police. Officers at the level of Superintendent of Police have been stationed at border points to enhance coordination and crowd management. In addition, 10 first-aid posts with one bed each have been set up to provide immediate medical assistance, they say. In the wake of the new directives, devotees coming to Prayagraj for the Amrit Snan are stopped at the district border and are allowed to only enter in small groups to avoid overcrowding. This has led to further inconvenience for some.
“I can’t walk 25 km. It is better to return home,” says Anjani Pandey, from Deoria, Uttar Pradesh. But it is difficult to return as the exit and entry gates at the Maha Kumbh area are overcrowded. “Even if we try to go back from here, we will be struck in traffic in between. Let us simply wait,” suggests Pandey’s wife.
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For those who managed to escape the disaster on January 29, the road back home is a long one. Shaligram Singh, 62, from Vaishali, Bihar, is stuck outside Prayagraj city. “I ran out of cash. I don’t know when we will return home,” he says.
Singh looks more anxious when he receives a call from a friend who says that he too is trapped in a traffic jam on the Prayagraj-Varanasi road and that vehicles are moving at snail’s pace.
“We thought the pilgrimage would go well as we saw a lot of advertisements before coming. But it is a different story here,” says Singh.
A devotee performs rituals on the bank of the Ganga during the Maha Kumbh Mela on January 31, 2025. | Photo Credit: PTI
However, not everyone is equally impacted or affected by the incident. Smita Devi, a visitor from Barabanki, believes that everyone should be responsible for themselves. “If you come for a holy ritual, you must show patience,” she says.
Virendra Singh, a devotee, says he has been at the Kumbh Mela for four days and seen lakhs of people. “When there are so many people, such an incident is bound to happen,” he says.
But for those who lost their loved ones, memories of the Mela evoke sadness and anger.
mayank.kumar@thehindu.co.in
With inputs from Ishita Mishra
Published - February 01, 2025 03:52 am IST
