HATHRAS: In the Navipur village, 23 km from Fulrai where the stampede during Bhole Baba’s satsang claimed the lives of 121 people, eyewitnesses and survivors have shared harrowing tales of chaos and loss following the event.
“In that crowd, some people from Etah had come drunk; I even scolded them for coming intoxicated to a holy place like a satsang. But they incited the stampede,” recounted Pushpa Devi, one of the survivors.
Asha and Pushpa, both in their 60s and devoted followers of Narayan Hari, were regular attendees of Baba’s satsangs. On July 2, Pushpa narrowly escaped the deadly crush, while her younger sister Asha tragically lost her life in the tumult.
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“After the Lord gave his sermon, he was leaving in his car, the crowd thought they hadn’t had a proper darshan in front of him, so they rushed towards his vehicle, hoping to catch a glimpse. When he left, everyone started running back home. During this time these drunk people deliberately started pushing others,” Pushpa recounted.
Despite Pushpa’s warnings, her sister Asha was determined to move closer to the stage. “I repeatedly told my sister Asha not to go inside due to the crowd and to wait until it dispersed, but she didn’t listen. She let go of my hand and ran inside,” Pushpa narrated.
The tragedy struck hard for Pushpa’s family. Her son, Surjit, said, “My aunt and another relative went inside and were crushed by the people during the stampede. When my mother went to check on them, she found that they had died on the spot.”
Pushpa vividly described the horror of identifying her sister’s body. “When I identified my sister’s body by brushing the dirt off her face and checking her nerves, I realised she was no more.”
Recounting her narrow escape, Pushpa said, “An elderly woman fell in front of me, and in trying to help her, I also fell. Many people fell on top of us, and I grabbed a man’s leg, pleading with him to help us. He removed the people on top of us and saved us.”
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A neighbour later informed Pushpa about the grim reality of her sister’s death. “I went to see my other cousin who came to the satsang with us, and her body had already been taken away from the field.”
“If someone is crushed in a crowd, their body would be on the ground there, but many bodies were thrown in the fields, how?” she questioned.
Pushpa blamed the lack of proper arrangements by the organisers. “The committee did not provide the necessary facilities. There was no barricading. How did drunk men end up in the women’s seating area? They were always separated in the satsangs, so how did those men get there? They started the stampede.”
“The administration failed when such a large satsang was happening. They should have ensured proper arrangements. Whoever gave permission should have ensured enough police force and proper organisation, but they did nothing,” said Asha’s daughter.
