At least 116 people, including women and children, were killed after a stampede at a religious congregation in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras on Tuesday in one of the worst such tragedies in the recent years.
The incident took place in Pulrai village where a large number of people had gathered for the event.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has formed a committee comprising the Agra additional director general of police and the divisional commissioner of Aligarh to investigate the incident.
He announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh ex gratia for the families of the dead and Rs 50,000 each for the injured.
"Instructions have been given to the concerned officials to conduct relief and rescue operations on war footing and to provide proper treatment to the injured," he wrote on X.
Expressing condolences to the families of those killed, Adityanath instructed officials to reach the accident site and carry out relief measures.
Relatives wait outside a hospital where victims of the Hathras' stampede are admitted | PTI
According to local media reports, twenty-seven bodies were brought to a hospital in neighbouring Etah district while 89 lay down in Hathras itself. Of the deceased, 23 were women.
The victims—dead or unconscious—were brought to the Sikandara Rao Trauma Centre in trucks and other vehicles.
Videos and photos of bodies piled atop each other have been doing the rounds on social media, one of them showing a woman crying, sitting amid five or six bodies in a truck.
The satsang was conducted by a preacher known as Bhole Baba.
District Magistrate Ashish Kumar said the satsang was a private function for which the sub-divisional magistrate had granted permission.
Sikandra Rao sub divisional magistrate Ravendra Kumar told PTI that the stampede took place when devotees tried to get a glimpse of Bhole Baba as the event ended. "They also wanted to collect some soil from around the baba's feet," he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the deaths during his speech in the Lok Sabha. "In the midst of discussions, I have also been given sad news. It has come to my attention that there have been many tragic deaths in the stampede in Hathras, UP," he said.
Modi said senior officials of the central government are in constant contact with the Uttar Pradesh administration to coordinate aid efforts.
