Patna stampede: Eye witnesses recount how the celebrations turned into a nightmare

Patna/New Delhi: In Patna, many eye-witnesses are still stupefied by the tragedy that unfolded before their eyes on Friday evening. They are still numb after witnessing the celebratory atmosphere descending into nightmare at Gandhi Maidan. Around 33 people, a majority of them children and women, were killed and several others suffered injuries in the incident that took place on the South-East corner of the sprawling ground in the Bihar capital near the banks of the Ganga. Recounting the horror and shock following the stampede, the families and friends of the victims termed the fateful Friday night a “night to forget”. [caption id=“attachment_1742951” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PTI[/caption] Standing outside the emergency ward of Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH), where the injured revellers have been taken for treatment, in search of her loved ones, Sarita Pandey told Firstpost, “Panic gripped as the rumours spread that a live overhead electric wire is falling. A stampede broke out after people started shouting bhago bhago. They were desperately jostling with each other to exit. I saw a one-and-a-half year old girl fell down near one of the exit doors and got trampled under the feet of the crowd running for their lives. I could not rescue her.” Ironically, only two of the 11 gates at the ground were allegedly kept open. 28-year-old Nikku is inconsolable at the door of a temple of Goddess Durga in front of Gandhi Maidan. She has been searching for – Rohit and Mohit - who had accompanied her to the venue to see ‘Ravana Vadh’. “We (she and her sister who is the mother of the duo) were holding their hands throughout the event but we lost their grip as the stampede triggered. They disappeared in the crowd. We are not sure that they are alive,” she said with her voice chocking. The stampede claimed the life of Rinku Sharma’s wife Pushpa Devi. Sharma is waiting outside PMCH to receive her body. “My wife along with my brother-in-law (sister’s husband) and nephew had come here from Punpun (a satellite town in Patna Metropolitan Region) to see the effigies of Ravana, Kumbhakarna and Meghnath burning to ashes. My nephew informed me over phone that Pushpa has lost her life in the stampede,” he says. Sharma’s four-month-old baby was also with her mother but he is safe. The daughter of a Postal Park resident Dinesh (75) also met her tragic end near an exit gate on way to Kargil Chowk when a large crowd tried to make way to Ashok Raj Path. “She had come to Patna from her in-laws place to enjoy Dussehra celebrations. Fearing that any untoward incident can take place because of the huge gathering, I had asked her not to go to Gandhi Maidan but she did not follow my instructions. Soon after the news regarding the stampede broke out, those who were with my daughter informed me that she is no more. She was the mother of three small children. Now, who will take care of them,” asks the emotional father who body was literally shaking. In a corner of PMCH, Saidpur resident Jyoti was sobbing inconsolably inside an ambulance where the body of her husband Mahendra Prasad was lying on a stretcher. Jyoti’s seven-year-old daughter was fell unconscious when she was made sit before her father’s body, whose blood strained body was wrapped in a white cloth. “Papa…aakhen kholo…(Papa…open your eyes),” the young girl keeps asking her father (who she is believing is alive) after regaining consciousness. Phulwari’s Pradeep was waiting for his father, who had gone to Gandhi Maidan for some work, to return. “We kept waiting for him but he left us forever,” he said. Hundreds of footwear lay strewn on a 1-km stretch of road on the South-East corner of Gandhi Maidan, bearing testimony to the tragedy. The half-km stretch of the road from Gandhi Maidan to Exhibition Road and about same distance upto Kargil Chowk was littered with shoes, slippers and other objects abandoned by the fleeing crowd. Patna’s citizens blamed the district police for keeping the exits shut for the revellers after the celebrations which led to the stampede. An eyewitness claimed that he saw the stampede breaking out right in front of his eyes and will never be the same person again. He slammed the police for making inadequate security arrangements. “Not a single policeman was present on the southern side of the Gandhi Maidan to regulate traffic and movement of people. Had there been proper deployment of cops, the loss of large number of lives could have been prevented,” he said. He hinted that the toll must be much higher than being accounted by the administration. An ice-cream vendor and his friends near Gandhi Maidan who claimed to have witnessed the horrific incident said, “Some unidentified youth spread the rumour and jostling among the people to exit from one gate was among several reasons triggering stampede.” The initial findings of the probe ordered by the state government into the incident also indicate that sheer negligence on the part of the district administrations resulted into the tragic incident. According to sources, it has been found in the investigation that sufficient number of policemen had not been deployed in the accident prone areas. “Only one gate was open before the stampede. The second gate was opened after the incident took place. Had the exit gates been opened earlier, the tragedy could have been averted,” said a source close to the enquiry panel. People also complained the government and the administration even failed in providing quick relief to the injured. Ambulances in sufficient numbers were not pressed into service. There was lack of stretchers because of which injured were taken to hospitals on rickshaws, they said. There is a chaos outside PMCH. Relatives and friends are running from pillar to post to enquire about their loved ones but neither the hospital authorities not the police officials are cooperating. People want to know whether their kith and kin are dead or alive. The hospital is not releasing any health bulletin of those who are undergoing treatment. Amid the tale of horror and tragedy, there is an incident which has a happy ending. A four-year-old girl Chahat Kumari, who had gone missing during the stampede yesterday, was rescued by a Muslim woman who reunited the girl with her parents. She took the girl to Gandhi Maidan police station morning where she met her parents.