A large crowd gathered at a well-known Hindu temple in Uttarakhand, northern India, killing at least six people and injuring dozens more in a crush.
A high-voltage electric wire reportedly fell on a temple path in Haridwar city on Sunday, causing panic among the congregation.
Local police official Ritesh Saha, who spoke to The Times of India newspaper, claimed that the sight of the wire falling immediately sparked a panic and a desperate attempt to flee.
A senior government official in Uttarakhand, Vinay Shankar Pandey, confirmed the deaths. According to Indian media reports, hospital officials reported that one person died in the electrocution that followed, while another died in the stampede.
After the incident, police and emergency services arrived on the scene and immediately launched a rescue operation. According to officials, a nearby hospital transported about 35 injured people.
Pandey called The Associated Press news agency from Haridwar and said, “The situation is now under control.” However, “the panic had tragic repercussions.”
Authorities are looking into whether proper crowd control measures were in place and what caused the overhead wire to collapse. Millions of people visit the temple town annually.
Uttarakhand’s chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami posted on X: “It is very depressing to learn about a stampede on the way to the Mansa Devi Temple in Haridwar.”
In India, large crowds frequently gather at temples or pilgrimage sites, sometimes enraging the local infrastructure and security measures, at religious gatherings.
At least three people were killed and several others were hurt in a sudden crowd-surge at a Hindu festival in the coastal state of Odisha in June. Six people were killed in Goa, western India, the day before they were killed by thousands of people for a well-known fire-walking ritual.
Source: Aljazeera
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