Stampede site strewn with shoes & shawls: 2 lawyers from Behala share Kumbh experience
Telegraph | 30 January 2025
Shoes, shawls, mufflers and many other personal items lay strewn on the road in the stampede zone of Mahakumbh when two lawyers from Calcutta reached there around noon on Wednesday.
Hours before that, when they were taking a dip at Arailghat Sangam around 2am, the two friends heard loud cries on the other side of the river but thought it was the sound of sadhus taking a dip.
Sujit Singh and Rajib Kumar Jha, both residents of Behala, had reached Prayagraj Chheoki Junction station just after midnight on Wednesday for the Amrit Snan on Mauni Amavasya.
The deaths in the stampede, they said, did not deter the faithful. Pilgrims were taking the dip and offering prayers, as planned, and stalls selling food were doing the usual business.
Some restrictions, however, had been enforced by then.
“We had plans to take a dip at Arailghat Sangam and then move to another ghat. But while taking the dip at Arailghat around 2am, we heard loud cries. We did not know what happened and thought the commotion was caused by sadhus taking the dip,” Jha told Metro from Prayagraj over the phone on Wednesday afternoon.
Jha and Singh had walked for nearly one-and-a-half hours from the station to the Sangam. “There was no transport. Some had said government buses were ferrying pilgrims but those were dropping off passengers at a spot 2-3km from the station,” said Jha.
After taking the dip at Arailghat, they took a boat and tried to go to the area where the stampede had taken place.
“We had no idea about the stampede then. But soon after the boat sailed, the police started making announcements with loudhailers, asking the boats to come back. We were forced to get off the boat. We did not know why the boat services were stalled,” Singh recounted.
“We then started walking towards the site where we had planned to take the second dip. It was a long walk. Also, the place was overcrowded, forcing us to slow down,” said Singh.
While they were walking, the two friends got anxious calls from family, friends and neighbours.
“They were asking whether we were alright. It was then that we came to know about the stampede. As we sat at a food stall, people were talking about it,” said Singh.
The friends then walked to the road where the stampede had taken place and found it covered with slippers, shoes, shawls, mufflers and other objects.
“We then realised the actual scale of the tragedy. If so many objects were lying around, tens of thousands of people must have been passing through the stretch,” said Singh.
They took another dip and left for the railway station in the afternoon, again on foot.
The station was overcrowded, too. “Dheere dheere chaliye (walk slowly),” the railway authorities were announcing.
“Our train to Varanasi is on Thursday morning and we had planned to spend the night at the station. But we were not allowed there. The police administration arranged for our stay at a local school with many other pilgrims,” said Singh.
“We decided not to venture out fearing another stampede,” he said.
A group of pilgrims from Agarpara, on the northern fringes of Calcutta, said there was a huge rush to take the holy dip at 7.40am on Wednesday.
“The majority of the pilgrims were keen on taking the dip at the auspicious time and there was a mad rush at the ghats around that time,” said Ratna Bose, an Agarpara resident who took the dip with other pilgrims from her locality.
“Many had gathered at the mela ground on the occasion of Mauni Amavasya. The ground is divided into multiple sectors. In each sector, several chose to spend the night on the streets so they could take the dip in the early morning.”
The group stayed in Sector 24, far from the stampede site. The members said that by afternoon, they were asked not to move out of the mela ground.
“Our return train is on Thursday night but we don’t know by when we will be able to leave the ground,” Bose said.