Despite strict instructions by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to take all necessary measures to ensure peaceful celebration of Ramnavmi Mela in Ayodhya, still stampede like situation occurred in Faizabad on Wednesday, in which a 60-year-old woman died and over a dozen others were injured in two separate incidents as lakhs of pilgrims thronged the holy city to take a dip in the Saryu on the occasion of Ramnavmi.
local administration including district magistrate, however, claimed that the woman died of heart failure due to suffocation.
Reports confirmed that about 10 lakh devotees started swarming the temple town since early Wednesday morning for a holy dip in the Saryu and offer prayer at temples on the occasion of Ram Navami. The first incident took place in Tulsi Udyan area near the Ramjanmabhoomi shrine, in which Dulari Devi, a native of Titra Bazar in Naugarh locality of Siddharthnagar died.
Her husband Sadhu Ram claimed that his wife died in stampede like situation due to large crowd. “We were returning after offering puja at Tulsi Udyan when we got trapped in the middle of a huge crowd. My wife fell down and got trapped under the rampaging crowd,” he revealed to the media persons. “We kept crying for help, but nobody came to our rescue. By the time some people from the local administration reached us and took her to hospital, she was already dead,” he added.
Faizabad Senior Superintendent of Police Anant Dev, however, claimed that the woman died due to heart failure after she suffocated due to huge crowd. Another injured woman, lakhpati Devi (70) of Sultanpur district, was admitted to the district hospital in a critical condition. In another stampede in Bandha Tiraha area, more than a dozen devotees were injured, officials said. All the injured were admitted in district hospital where their condition has been stated to be stable.
Meanwhile 5 persons including a 35-year-old man and his 3-year-old son died in two separate roads mishaps. In the first case reported from Muzaffarnagar, a man was going with his son on a motorcycle when they were hit by a speeding tractor trolley near Jatmujhere locality of the district, injuring both critically along with two others on late Tuesday night. The victims were going to their native Daha village when the incident occurred. The injured were shifted to hospital in a serious condition where both father and son succumbed to their injuries.
In another incident reported from Mirzapur, three persons were killed when the tractor trolley they were traveling in overturned near Nunauti village on Tuesday night. The victims were returning after a religious ceremony when the driver lost control over the vehicle and it overturned. While Shyam Kumar (18), Katora Devi (60) and Neeraj (10) were killed, one other with serious injuries was referred to Varanasi. Other injured were sent home after first aid. The bodies have been handed over to the families after postmortem examination.