Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that he did not want to politicise the stampede in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras district on Tuesday that killed 121 persons, but alleged in the same breath that there had been lapses on the part of state government.
The stampede took place at a religious gathering convened by preacher Narayan Saakar Hari, popularly known as Bhole Baba, at Fulrai village in Sikandrarau tehsil.
A crowd of about 2.5 lakh persons from several districts and nearby states had gathered at the venue for the event on Tuesday, according to a first information report registered after the incident.
“It is a matter of grief that so many families have suffered, so many people lost their lives,” Gandhi told reporters on Friday after meeting the families of those who died in the stampede. “I do not want to speak from a political prism but there have been some lapses on the part of the administration.”
The families have said that there were shortcomings from the administration’s side, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said. They have said that the kind of police arrangement that was expected at the event was missing on Tuesday, he added.
The legislator from the state’s Rae Bareli constituency also requested Chief Minister Adityanath to generously compensate the families of those who died while attending the religious gathering.
“They should get it [compensation] now because they are poor people,” Gandhi told reporters. “If you delay it by six months or a year then it will not be of much use.”
On Wednesday, Adityanath said that the Centre and the state government together were giving Rs 4 lakh each to the families of the dead and Rs 1 lakh each to the injured. The Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state has also set up a judicial inquiry to look into the incident.
On Thursday, the Uttar Pradesh Police arrested six persons, including two women, who had organised the religious gathering.
The police also announced a reward of Rs 1 lakh for information that would lead to the arrest of Devprakash Madhukar, the chief sevadar and the main accused person in the case, who has been missing since the incident. “Soon, a non-bailable warrant will be issued against him,” Aligarh Inspector-General of Police Shalabh Mathur said.
The first information report and a report by a local sub-divisional magistrate said that the stampede took place when several of Hari’s followers rushed towards him as he was leaving the venue. The devotees were trying to get a closer glimpse of Hari and collect his “charan raj”, or soil from the ground where he had walked.
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