Lessons ignored: MP temple stampede is doubly inexcusable

Bhopal: The death toll in Sunday’s stampede at the Ratangarh temple in Madhya Pradesh could cross 125, as divers were still busy fishing out bodies from the Sindh River. The Ratangarh temple is located in a remote forest area in Datia district. It took quite some valuable time for the news of the stampede to get out. Inevitably, the political blame game began even as the news was still being disseminated. The Congress led by former chief minister Digvijaya Singh and Union Minister Kamal Nath seized the opportunity to attack the government. Kamal Nath promptly demanded chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s resignation. Mercifully the war of words was confined to social media as the Election Commission prohibited political leaders from visiting the disaster site. Only the chief minister was exempt. “I am going to Ratangarh, Datia today to take first -hand account of the situation. Guilty would be punished at the earliest. Politics on any tragedy is unwanted. The focus should be on attending to the injured & take steps to avoid any such incidents in the future,”Chouhan tweeted ahead of his visit. [caption id=“attachment_1171977” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The narrow bridge leading up to the temple is crammed full of pilgrims: PTI image[/caption] However, the government can’t escape the blame for negligence, as the very same site had witnessed a disaster seven years ago, when 57 people died on the ninth day of the same festival. The bridge did not exist then and pilgrims had to use boats to reach the temple. The river was flooded when a large quantity of water was released from reservoir upstream without prior warning. No action was taken against the persons responsible for that act. An inquiry commission headed by Justice SK Pandey was constituted and the district collector S Geeta and superintendent of police Pramod Verma were suspended for negligence. The commission’s report which was forwarded by the general administration department to the home department on 23 March, 2007 was never tabled in the Assembly. Its recommendations are in the public domain though. The commission had observed that most officers including the police station house officer were missing from the accident site and should face action. It had also indicted the superintendent of police for not reviewing security arrangements on time. The officials were not only let off without a substantive action but have also been promoted since. The commission had also indicted the SP and Collector for not visiting the site on time. Last year the state government constituted a statutory authority for fairs and pilgrimages, which is expected to ensure adequate arrangements for the organisation of such fairs. The authority has ended up as a centre for political rehabilitation and promotion of the BJP’s political agenda in organising pilgrimages under the chief minister’s aegis during this election year. The other criticism of the government is the non-deployment of enough police personnel for such a large convergence of pilgrims which is an annual affair. For a recent jamboree of the workers the ruling party ensured deployment of at least 5,000 policemen including 12 IPS and 60 State Police service officers. For Ratangarh a force of 60 was considered enough to handle the traffic of over 150,000 visitors. With the election code in force the government is cramped for action .The chief minister had to seek the election commission’s clearance for all relief measures which ended up wasting precious time. Datia, which is the smallest district in the state, does not have enough police personnel to deal with the tens of thousands of people who gather for such occasions. This time around the District collector was on leave and the divisional commissioner was on an overseas visit. Eyewitnesses said pilgrims panicked when a tractor dashed against the railing of the bridge and felled it. Rumours that the bridge was going to collapse triggered the stampede. Some devotees were crushed to death under the feet of fellow worshippers, while others drowned after jumping into the river. The police had allowed many tractors and trolleys on the 750 metre bridge which led to a long traffic jam. It was the tractors running on the narrow bridge that caused the disaster. Dilip Arya, deputy inspector general of police for Chambal region, said the victims were mostly women and children. Many bodies piled up in less than an hour and were awaiting identification by the authorities or relatives. Doctors said post mortem was conducted on 103 bodies by evening.