Ganesh visarjan festivity turned into mourning on the bank of the Yamuna river on Wednesday evening as eight people lost their lives during idol immersion. While a large number of immersion processions triggered massive traffic jams in different parts of the city, thus exposing the lack of anticipation on the part of the traffic police.
The police said the number of the casualty may increase as the rescue operation was still on till late on Wednesday night. The rescued people were taken to nearby hospitals — Hindu Rao Hospital, Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital and Jag Pravesh Chandra Hospital.
Kith and kin of victims alleged that every year around 4 to 5 devotees die during the immersion processions at Wazirabad ghat in the want of proper security arrangement. They alleged that there were no police patrolling near the ghats this year also.
Harrowed commuters complained that the situation would have been better if the police had anticipated the festive rush and had made proper arrangements. The total mismanagement completely paralysed the city's traffic on Wednesday evening.
Devotees, mostly youth, had started heading towards the ghats to immerse lord Ganesh idols. Family and friends of the deceased present on the spot informed that as they moved further in the river for immersion they got carried away with the current. The deceased have been identified as Rajesh (25), Toshi (25), Rahul (31), Kale (31), Neeraj (17), Jetender Kumar (28), Nitin (24) and Yogesh Kumar (20). The first incident was reported around 5 pm.
“People failed to gauge the depth and they moved further to immerse large idols. A few of them went ahead and reached the middle of the river, where they could not stand due to the flow of the water. Soon, they were washed away as several persons made unsuccessful attempts to rescue them,” said Sanjay Chauhan, a resident of Karol Bagh.
“We started receiving several calls of drowning in afternoon. The rescue operation is still on. The exact number of death is not yet known but till now five bodies have been fished out from Wazirabad Shamshan Ghat,” said a senior police official.
Immersions took place at Wazirabad and Kudesia Ghat near ISBT. Around hundreds of people in different groups had also gathered on the Yamuna banks at Sonia Vihar and Burari.
The in-charge of Delhi boat club, Harish Kumar, said the rescue operation is still being carried out by the divers and they have managed to save eight lives. Revenue Department of the Delhi Government also pressed its divers into service. last year in September 2012, during the same festival of Ganesh Visarjan, five people drowned in Wazirabad Ghat in north Delhi.
Traffic came to a standstill on Ring Road beyond Kashmere Gate. The traffic chaos aggravated in the evening when at least eight persons drowned in the Yamuna while immersing Ganesh idols. This caused choc-a-bloc situation on the Ring Road.“There was no one to remove the devotees who were dancing on the roads holding up the traffic. Scores of devotees carried on commodity vans were halting at several places and smearing colours on each other. If only the celebrations could have been carried out in an orderly manner, the nightmarish situation would not have occurred,” whined Puneet Joshi, a Preet Vihar resident, who was stuck for over two hours in the traffic to reach Kahmere Gate.
“It took me over one and-a-half hours to reach Wazirabad from Rajghat. Traffic had come to a standstill at Rajghat after the incident. Traffic remained heavy on Vikas Marg and Geeta Colony to Rajghat till late in the evening,” said Parineeta Sharma, a hassled commuter at Rajghat.
Traffic was thrown out of gear in East Delhi and ITO area as well. “Traffic snarls were reported from Wazirabad pul and ITO on Wednesday. large number of devotees had thronged at both these points to immerse Ganesh idols. This created bottlenecks for the traffic coming from the east Delhi,” said a traffic police official.
Traffic police helpline received the complaints of traffic snarls from the road leading to ISBT Kashmere Gate, Kalindi Kunj, Kalkaji and ITO in the evening.