After Kumbh 1954, Hathras stampede has turned out to be the second biggest religious gathering stampede tragedy in history. The incident has come as a shock to the whole nation.
It all happened after the discourse had ended. After this, the crowd, mostly women surged towards the baba known as Narayan Sakar Vishwa Hari bhole baba, to touch his feet.
On his part the baba slipped away and left for Manipuri.
He has a large following among the backward class and his followers are said to be spread in several states.
The discourse was organised in an area spread over 150 bigha land in Phulrai village on Kanpur-Aligarh highway.
The organizers had permission for assembly for 80,000 people but reports say more than 1.5 lakh followers had gathered. As a result arrangements fell flat.
Sources said, people started falling in the slippery pits along the road. Added to this was pressure of crowd from behind and mismanagement served as double whammy. As a result, the disater turned into unimaginable loss of human lives.
The crowd was leaving after satsang. In the midst of this the it was stopped for passage of Baba’s cavalcade of cars. It was at this point when people grew impatient to touch bavas feet. This caused the melee. People started falling in water filled farm land and ran over others.
The scene was so distressing that a constable Ravi Kumar in duty died due to stroke as he could not withstand the tragedy.
(According to sources, Baba’s real name is Suraj Pal. He served as head constable in the police department and was also posted in Local Intelligence Department (LIU). He was jailed in an alleged case of rape. After coming out he changed his identity to become a godman)
CM UP YOGI ADITYA NATH ANNOUNCED HIGH LEVEL INQUIRY AND PAYMENT OF RS 2 LAKH TO EACH OF THE DEAD AND RS 50,000 TO THE INJURED.
PM Narendra Modi stopped in between his speech in the parliament and informed the house about the tragedy.
Expressing heartfelt condolences to the dead he said he wishes speedy recovery of the injured persons.
A sum of Rs 2 lakh to the dead and Rs 50,000 to the injured as help was announced by him.
