More than 150 pilgrims, a majority of them women and children, were killed and hundreds injured in a stampede near the hilltop Naina Devi temple in Himachal Pradesh on Sunday morning, following rumours of a landslide. The toll is expected to rise, with officials confirming that 151 bodies had arrived at Anandpur Sahib’s Civil Hospital alone till evening, 50 of them children. The temple is located about 160 km from Shimla. The incident happened around 10.30 am as many people crowded under a small tin shelter — just a few turns away from the temple — to escape the heavy downpour. Rumours of a landslide and stones rolling down from a nearby hill top led to commotion, which apparently caused the stampede. As a large number of pilgrims tried to push their way through, the iron railing along the steep four-km trek to the temple collapsed, causing many to roll down the slope. There was a huge rush for the Navratras, with 20,000-25,000 devotees visiting the temple instead of the usual 15,000. Balwinder, who lost his wife and only child (a three-year-old), said: “Someone shouted that there had been a landslide at the hill top. Chaos struck and people started running to save their lives.” With rain making the stairs slippery, many pilgrims fell in the chaos and were crushed. However, some pilgrims blamed a police lathicharge for the stampede. “Had the police not lathicharged the pilgrims, hundreds of lives would have been saved. There was no arrangement for any such mishap,” said Ashok, who lost his sister-in-law Meena and four-year-old son Cheenu. There were devotees at the temple from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and other northern states. While over 400 of the injured were rushed to various hospitals of Punjab and Himachal, the bodies were brought to Anandpur Sahib’s Civil Hospital, 18 km from the shrine. Additional forces were sent to help the injured. The hospital compound presented a gory sight, with relatives going around the bodies looking for loved ones. “I have been trying to find my wife for the past five hours. I don’t even know whether she is alive,” said a wailing Ropar resident. Another eyewitness, Jagdeep Singh, a resident of district Ludhiana, said more lives were lost when an electric wire fell on the side railing due to heavy winds. “Five-six people died in front of me due to electric shock. My friend was lucky to have survived as he jumped away from the railing, which collapsed due to the pilgrims.” One of the guards at the site described the horror of what they saw: “We were at a distance when people started running over each other. It lasted for about half an hour followed by screams, cries and howls of children and women. In the end, there were people lying on the stairs, on the side of the hill, from where they had tried to run for a shortcut to avoid the stampede, but failed.”
