6 die in stampede at Puri Rath Yatra

Bhubaneswar, July 4: Despite the massive police bandobast, a stampede near the Jagannath temple in Puri on a sweltering Friday left six pilgrims, including three women, dead and 15 others injured during the annual Rath Yatra festival.

The devotees, aged between 40 and 50, were standing in front of Lion’s Gate when the priests accompanying the deity of Goddess Subhadra reportedly pushed them from behind, triggering a stampede.

The deities of Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra were being taken out of the temple to the decorated chariots at the time.

At least three of the injured are said to be critical and are under treatment at SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack.

Police officials in Puri said the victims died due to stampede or suffocation. The identity of the deceased is yet to be established.

The stampede happened despite the police installing CCTV cameras to monitor the crowd. The Government had deployed over 4,000 police personnel, including 29 IPS officers and 3 companies of Rapid Action Force (RAF), to avoid any untoward incident.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who was in Puri to watch the car festival, ordered an inquiry into the incident. A member of the Board of Revenue will probe into the incident.

The CM also announced an ex-gratia of Rs 1 lakh to the families of each pilgrim who died in the stampede. The government would bear the cost of treatment of the injured, sources said.

Ads By Google

Message*	Maximum characters allowed

Name*		Email ID*
Subject*		Country*

TERMS OF USE:
The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s).

I agree to the terms of use.

Mail this page