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Stampede deaths revisit Puri
4 people die in stampede at Lord Jagannath Temple.
BY CORRESPONDENT
November 5, 2006
The Badaosha festival turned an occasion for sorrow as devotees of Lord Jagannath at Puri were
stunned in horror when a stampede claimed the lives of at least 4. As many as 24 devotees were injured in the stampede that occurred during the wee hours of Saturday. The condition of some injured is stated to be serious.
According to reports, the stampede occurred at around 4.30 am when a huge crowd tried to enter the shrine of Lord Jagannath for a darshan of the deities on the occasion of Badaosha festival in this Hindu month of Kartik. The injured persons have been shifted to the Puri district hospital. The Orissa government ordered a judicial inquiry into the stampede.
The situation continues to be tense at the 12th century temple where the Mangala arati ritual was to be conducted in the sanctum sanctorum. The mishap occurred as soon as the temple door opened and the crowd surged forward. Some of them in the front tripped and fell leading to the stampede. Three of the devotees who died perished on the spot.
The devotees were believed to have queued up near the Jhulana mandap inside the shrine waiting for an inner door to open. The Lord Jagannath temple administration is a worried on why and how such an incident happened. They in fact did not anticipate such an incident as the crowd is generally not big during the Mangala arati, sources at the mishap site said.
A sitting judge of the high court is to probe the mishap. The government will also give Rs 1 lakh as ex gratia to the next of kin of victims of the stampede and bear the cost of treatment of the injured devotees. It will take action against officials responsible for the tragedy, he said.
This is the second stampede at the Lord Jagannath temple in 13 years. Several people had died in a similar incident that occurred during Nagarjuna Besa, a major temple festival, in 1993.The stampede did not affect temple rituals, though the injured were fighting for their lives at the nearby hospital.
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