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Thursday, July 24, 2025

3 killed, 12 hospitalised after crowd surge at Indian festival

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24 days ago
20250629
Hindu devotees walk in a procession accompanying three large chariots housing deities, in Puri, India, Saturday, June 28, 2025. (AP Photo)

Hindu devotees walk in a procession accompanying three large chariots housing deities, in Puri, India, Saturday, June 28, 2025. (AP Photo)

Uncredited

Three peo­ple were killed and more than a dozen hos­pi­talised Sun­day fol­low­ing a sud­den crowd surge and stam­pede at a pop­u­lar Hin­du fes­ti­val in east­ern In­dia, lo­cal au­thor­i­ties said.

“There was a sud­den crowd surge of devo­tees for hav­ing a glimpse of the Hin­du deities dur­ing which a few peo­ple ei­ther faint­ed, felt suf­fo­cat­ed or com­plained of breath­less­ness,” said Sid­dharth Shankar Swain, the top gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial in Puri.

Swain told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that 15 peo­ple were rushed to a lo­cal gov­ern­ment hos­pi­tal, where three peo­ple were pro­nounced dead. Au­top­sies are planned to de­ter­mine the ex­act caus­es of death. The oth­er 12 peo­ple have been dis­charged.

Tens of thou­sands of devo­tees gath­ered in the coastal town ear­ly Sun­day at Shree Gundicha Tem­ple, near the fa­mous Ja­gan­natha Tem­ple, to catch a glimpse of the deities on­board three char­i­ots, Swain said.

The coastal tem­ple town of Puri comes alive each year with the grand “Rath Ya­tra,” or char­i­ot fes­ti­val, in one of the world’s old­est and largest re­li­gious pro­ces­sions. The cen­turies-old fes­ti­val in­volves Hin­du deities be­ing tak­en out of the tem­ple and dri­ven in colour­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed char­i­ots.

The fes­ti­val is one of Hin­duism’s most revered events and draws hun­dreds of thou­sands of devo­tees an­nu­al­ly from across In­dia and the world.

Naveen Pat­naik, a for­mer top elect­ed of­fi­cial of Odisha state where Puri is lo­cat­ed, said in a so­cial me­dia post that “no gov­ern­ment ma­chin­ery (was) present to man­age the surg­ing crowds, high­light­ing a shock­ing lapse in du­ty.”

“While I re­frain from ac­cus­ing the gov­ern­ment of crim­i­nal neg­li­gence, their bla­tant cal­lous­ness has un­de­ni­ably con­tributed to this tragedy,” he said.

Pat­naik called the in­ci­dent a “stam­pede” that “ex­pos­es the gov­ern­ment’s glar­ing in­com­pe­tence in en­sur­ing a peace­ful fes­ti­val for devo­tees.”

In a so­cial me­dia post, Mo­han Cha­ran Ma­jhi, the top elect­ed of­fi­cial of Odisha, apol­o­gised for the in­ci­dent, say­ing it oc­curred “due to stam­pede among devo­tees” amid ex­cite­ment to have a glimpse of the deities.

Ma­jhi said the se­cu­ri­ty neg­li­gence will be in­ves­ti­gat­ed im­me­di­ate­ly.

“This neg­li­gence is in­ex­cus­able,” he said, adding that con­crete ac­tion will be tak­en against the per­sons in­volved.

NEW DEL­HI (AP) —

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