Ranchi, June 26: A 65-year-old man died on the premises of Baidyanathdhamin Deoghar this morning apparently due to suffocation even as police claimed there wasn't any festive rush at the temple.
A native of Kankerbagh in Patna, Om Prakash Sinha had come to the temple town with his family to offer puja at the Babadham. He fell unconscious while worshipping inside the sanctum sanctorum allegedly due to uncontrolled rush of devotees around 7.30am.
His family members dragged him out of the garbhagriha and rushed him to the health centre on the temple premises.
"A doctor was present, but he couldn't do much in the absence of adequate facilities. Thereafter, Sinha was rushed to the sadar hospital, around 1.5km away, but he died before reaching the hospital," said Deoghar civil surgeon Shiv Chandra Jha.
He added that the victim had been suffering from heart diseases and was on regular medication. "It's true that the environment inside the garbhagriha often becomes suffocating, but it will be too early to jump to the conclusion that the man died of suffocation. Even his family members didn't found anything wrong and didn't insist on the post-mortem," Jha added.
Deoghar SP A. Vijaylaxmi said Sinha may have died of cardiac arrest. "There wasn't any heavy rush at the temple and devotees prayed smoothly today," she added.
But, sources claimed around 300 devotees were present inside the sanctum sanctorum when the incident took place.
The Deoghar administration is getting ready to host over 30 lakh devotes for the annual month-long Shravani Mela, installing CCTV cameras at major crossings, cleaning approach roads and conducting training sessions for officials on safety and security.
However, today's incident put a question mark on the administration's ability to control crowd and avert any untoward incident.
The SP said they were fully prepared to deal with all eventualities during the mela.
Asked about the health department's preparedness to tackle any kind of emergency during the mela, the civil surgeon said preparations were almost complete to ensure timely medical assistance to devotees during the festival.
