RATANGARH TRAGEDY

RATANGARH TRAGEDY

The Navratra festivities ended in tragedy when 110 pilgrims including women and children were killed and more than 100 injured in a stampede on a bridge leading to the historic Ratangarh temple in Datia district of Madhya Pradesh on 13^th October 2013. It was a disastrous re-run of the 2006 stampede when more than 50 pilgrims had got washed away falling in panic into the Sindh river off the same bridge in 2006.

Eyewitnesses said over-crowding of the bridge, which is 500m long and 10m wide, caused one of its railings to snap, which led some people to shout that the bridge was collapsing. With more than a lakh of people for the pilgrimage, this set off panic with people trying to rush to safety, which caused the stampede.

Unconfirmed reports said police lathi charge to control pilgrims from jumping a queue created alarm and drove people in one direction, leading to sudden surge of people on the bridge that caused one of its railings to snap, which in turn created the panic. Sindh, a tributary of the Yamuna, was engorged with rains in past weeks and many people also fell into the river, the reason why administrative officials fear that the death toll could rise.

The bridge itself was a ghastly sight with bodies sprawled even as rescue teams from Gwalior, a mere 75-odd km away, were delayed due to battered roads and a 10-km long traffic jam. Pilgrims said there were only nine constables and a sub-inspector manning more than one lakh people along the 500-metre bridge when the stampede occurred.

In a huge administrative lapse, tractors and jeeps were allowed to carry pilgrims on the bridge. Most of the lakh-odd pilgrims in Datia, around 405 km north of Bhopal, were from Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

The Madhya Pradesh government constituted a judicial commission to probe the stampede at Ratangarh in Datia district on 13/10/2013, which claimed the lives of 115 people. The commission is headed by retired High Court judge Rakesh Saxena and based in Gwalior. The commission is expected to submit its report within two months.