At least 12 people died and 13 were injured in an early morning riot on Saturday (1) at a religious shrine in India-controlled Kashmir, a local official said.
The stampede took place around 3:00 am (18:30 am on Friday GMT) on the road to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine, one of the most revered Hindu sites in northern India.
“People tripped over each other. It was difficult to know which leg or arm was tangled up with whom,” said a witness who identified himself as Ravinder, speaking by telephone with AFP.
“I helped collect eight bodies when the ambulance arrived, about half an hour later. I feel lucky to be alive, but I still shiver when I remember what I saw,” he added.
There are thousands of shrines in India’s cities and villages, mainly Hindu, as well as in remote places in the Himalayas or the jungles of the south.
Some are important pilgrimage sites and the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invested heavily to improve access infrastructure.
Before the covid-19 pandemic, 100,000 devotees walked the steep path to the narrow cave that houses the Vaishno Devi shrine.
The number was reduced to 25,000, but witnesses and the media indicated that this number would have been exceeded several times in Saturday’s tragedy.
– Discussion –
According to some versions, an argument between two believers took place before the stampede.
Rescue efforts began immediately and the wounded, some of them in critical condition, were transferred to nearby hospitals.
Images circulating on social networks show small ambulances arriving at hospitals while it was still night.
The shrine, which is open 24 hours a day, is located in the hills of Katra, about 60 km from the town of Jammu.
Access to the site was suspended after the stampede, although it was later reopened.
People often travel to the nearby town of Katra and walk 15 km to the cave entrance, where they usually have to wait hours to enter. Some people go on horseback and there is also a helicopter service.
Witness Ravinder said the tragedy occurred at a point where a crowd descending from the sanctuary met those ascending.
He estimated that there were at least 100,000 people.
“There was no one reviewing the registration documents of the faithful. I’ve been there several times, but I’ve never seen that cluster of people”, he assured.
“That’s when some were able to lift a corpse with their hands that people could see (what was happening) and made space to remove the bodies,” he said.
“Extremely sad about the loss of life,” Prime Minister Modi expressed on Twitter, adding that he was in contact with local authorities.
In turn, Minister Jitendra Singh announced that he would go to the scene to assess the situation.
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