Lucknow: At least six people including a toddler died and about 30 suffered injuries in a stampede at the Mansa Devi Temple in Haridwar on Sunday morning, when alleged rumours of a devotee being electrocuted triggered a panicked rush towards the exit.
Clothes and handbags were piled at several places on the temple compound, including the stairs.
“They crushed my infant child under their feet,” a father in his 20s told reporters, dried tear marks on his cheeks. The reporters couldn’t muster the courage to ask his name.
A few injured worshippers, who said they lost loved ones in the 9am stampede, alleged some priests had suddenly begun closing the exit gate, and many devotees started running towards it for fear of being locked inside.
But the authorities said that people began running because of a rumour about someone having been electrocuted inside the temple.
While most devotees climb up the steep steps of the temple, set on a hillock, some arrive by ropeway. The ropeway has, however, been closed recently because of a dispute over the tendering process for its running and repairs.
The temple is run by the Sri Mansa Devi Mandir Trust, formed by the Niranjani Akhara, headed by Ravindra Puri, a mahant and president of the All India Akhara Parishad.
“According to our primary investigation, a rumour was spread about some open electric wires and someone coming in contact with them,” Haridwar senior superintendent of police Pramendra Singh Dobhal said.
“The state disaster response force and the fire brigade are at the spot. We are collecting CCTV footage and everything will be clear soon.”
Sanju Gupta, a Haridwar resident who was outside the temple when the stampede occurred, said: “Some sparks were seen coming out of an electrical pole on the top of the temple, and people started running in all directions.”
News agency PTI quoted district magistrate Mayur Dikshit as saying that some broken wires had been found at the site, suggesting some people had tried to climb up the stairs to the temple by clutching at those.
The temple management said that over 5,000 people worshipped at the shrine on most days, but the daily footfall had shot up to 30,000 during the ongoing Kanwar Yatra season.
Local people had alleged in the past that while the temple received offerings in lakhs every day, it didn’t provide any facility to the devotees.
“Some home guards and private security guards are deployed here during the day,” a member of the temple management told reporters on the condition of anonymity.
He said that with the number of devotees increasing in recent years and the temple’s income too multiplying, a second trust had come into existence in 2022.
“The management of the temple was a bit better before but the situation started worsening with the increase in footfall a few years ago,” he added.
Puri, who came to see the injured at the Manas Milap Government Hospital, was caught on camera asking doctors to remove the media. He later himself shoved some journalists.
The powerful mahant had been elected president of the All India Akhara Parishad after its then head, Narendra Giri, committed suicide in 2021, allegedly after his disciples recorded — or morphed — a video purportedly showing him with a woman and a teenaged girl.
Puri said: “The temple trust will give ₹5 lakh to the families of the dead devotees and ₹1 lakh to the injured.”
Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said: “The police will probe how the rumour was spread in the temple that led to the stampede and the deaths.”
Dhami, who visited the hospital and met the injured, has ordered a magisterial inquiry and announced ₹2 lakh each for the families of the dead and ₹50,000 each forthe injured.
The police said four of the dead were from Uttar Pradesh, one from Bihar and one from Uttarakhand. While one was a toddler, three of the victims were aged 18 and another was 12, PTI added.