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The victims include 26 women and a child, of them 20 have been identified. Compensation of Rs 1 lakh for the deceased, Rs 50,000 for the grievously injured and Rs 25,000 for the less injured have been announced. The kin of the victims will be allowed free AC travel to and from Allahabad.
Two probes have been ordered, one by the state government and another by the Railways, to go into what triggered the stampede.
Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan resigned Monday as chairman of the Kumbh Mela Committee owning moral responsibility. Khan said, “Though the incident took place outside the Kumbh Mela premises, I take moral responsibility and resign as the in-charge of the Kumbh.”
While the state government accused the Railways of not making adequate arrangements to deal with the rush, the Railway ministry said that had the state government dealt with the situation better, the incident could have been averted. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav virtually blamed the Railways, saying, “Everybody knows who is responsible. I do not want to say anything, but some people have pointed out.”
Railway ministry’s internal assessment has found that the ad-hoc bus stands for long-route travels for devotees were located at least 10 km away from the main venue, which, divisional officials have told the ministry, led to a “mass exodus of people” into railway station. The official estimate of the number of people that converged at the station between 6 and 7 pm was two to three lakh.
Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said that even if railways ran a train every 10 minutes, it would not have managed to cater to a rush of three crore people — the estimated total number of devotees that converged at the Kumbh for the holy bath. “Even if we want to run trains after every 10 minutes we cannot do that because there has to be a minimum gap between two stations and safety of passengers who have boarded the trains is also equally important for us. Trains cannot run like vehicles on roads. There are 12,000 trains on Railway’s 65,000-km-long route system which carries 2.3 crore passengers in a day. So all the trains cannot reach at one spot in a day as there are limitations on the part of railways to carry crores of passengers in a given day,” Bansal said before leaving for Allahabad.
It is learnt that the gates did not act as access-control points. An entire entrance — on the station’s Civil Lines side — was opened bringing in additional surges of crowd into the station premises. This gate was supposed to have been shut, as per the original plan. WITH PTI
The services in all parts of the country are so pathetic that such incidents are no surprise. To change all this we need to change the system and for that a new party is required at the centre and state level. Only AAP seem to fit the bill who can provide good governance and take country to better future.
i was there around 5.30 on platform overhead bridge. i came to delhi through sawantrashani express. in my opanion, keeping in mind the railways constraints and handling so big crowd is not so simple as to commet. as i feel there was not clear communication from the railways regarding the arrival of trains on platform, sending the passangers to specfic platform number as per their destinations. For half an hour i spend to know how to reach on platform no 7. i am young of age 33 and alone. What will be the fate of those having old and small kids, families to run across the platform in short notice manohar singh ph.D IIT DELHI
I PRAY TO THE GOD THAT GOOD SENSE WILL PREVAIL ON THE RULER OF THE COUNTRY AND BAD TIMES MUST GO.
Life of Muslim terrorist worth's much more than hindu devotees. A day back they have announced Rs. 5 lakh for victims now it is reduced to 1 lakh. Also why there were no doctors for 2:30 hours after incident ? Even after 2:30 hours there was only one doctor ? They might have kept 15-20 doctors in advance.
If you cant handle this, how can you run a country of billion people. Lets british rule this country again.
The report says that, "the official estimate of the number of people that converged at the station between 6 and 7 pm was two to three lakh". Railways were not able to handle even that, then why is he talking about transporting 3 crore people. People have died and this guy is adamant on lame excuses.
