Patna stampede not the first; sadly won’t be last
While it is too early to pin the blame on any one individual or group for the stampede in Patna that has claimed more than 30 lives and injured scores more, there is little doubt that Friday's tragedy was the result of lessons not learnt. Almost every year without fail, such stampedes occur in one part of the country or another, usually during major religious festivals, and each time the crux of the problem is the same: Poor crowd management. A large number of people try to fit themselves into a relatively small space, and the authorities do precious little to regulate crowd movement. It's only a matter of time and chance before something snaps, and all hell breaks loose. In Patna on Friday, it was a rumour about a fallen live wire that served as the catalyst — it spread like wildfire, and within minutes, lakhs of people, packed like sardines into Gandhi Maidan, were running for the exits. last year, at the Ratangarh Mata Temple in Madhya Pradesh, it was a rumour about a bridge that was about to collapse which led to the stampede that killed 115 people. Months earlier during the Kumbh Mela, a bridge broke at the Allahabad train station (which handles much of the traffic for the festival), causing a stampede and killing 36. The same thing happed in 2012 during the Chhat Puja festivities in Patna. In 2011, an overturned car triggered a stampede near the Sabarimala shrine, killing 106 pilgrims. In each case, the crowds were trapped in a hellish situation. At the Dussehra celebrations in Patna, the people had access to only two of the four exits — and the lack of adequate lighting in the field did not help matters either. Moreover, the fact that the rumour was allowed to spread in this manner shows that there was no centralised command-and-control mechanism. Worse still, even in the aftermath of the stampede, the authorities could not put up an adequate response. The State Government was missing in action for all practical purposes; law enforcement officials were frazzled; and even the hospitals were unprepared for the crowds. Yes, the State Government has since promised compensation to victims and their next of kin, but that neither solves the problem at hand nor does it promise to make things better the next time around.
What makes these incidents truly tragic is that they are as predictable as they are avoidable. Everybody knows that the crowds will throng to the fair grounds on Dussehra, or that some temples and holy sites will attract millions on certain days of the year. Why then do we not have enough safeguards and crowd- control mechanisms in place to prevent such incidentsIJ State Governments need to coordinate with the organisers of these events — be they puja committees or temple managements — to ensure that steps are taken for public safety. Perhaps, a crowd safety code can be developed by the Union Government in consultation with State Governments. Equally importantly, the public too has a responsibility towards individual and collective safety. For example, there have been cases where mischievous folks have started rumours to break their line and jump ahead, and caused a stampede in the process. No amount of policing and state protection can help in such situations.