Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
The deadly stampede that left at least 19 people dead at the Chorbagan Sarbojanin Durga Puja pandal in Kolkata on Saturday evening may have resulted from panic caused by a lack of proper crowd management and misleading announcements following a sudden downpour, a senior police officer, cited by news agency PTI, said.
He said investigators had come across a video where the announcer could be heard saying that the pandal was about to collapse.
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“We have video footage of an announcement asking people to leave the pandal on the grounds that the structure was about to collapse. We are trying to identify who made the announcement and what prompted it,” the officer said.
Circumstantial evidence, along with accounts from locals and eyewitnesses, points to inadequate crowd control as a contributing factor in the tragedy, according to the official.
Police also found that the number of police personnel and private security guards deployed at the venue was insufficient, further aggravating the situation.
“We have gathered sufficient evidence pointing to gross mismanagement by the puja organisers. There was no clear plan to manage the large number of visitors, and everything was handled verbally. We have collected CCTV camera footage, recorded accounts from locals and eyewitnesses, and corroborated our findings. Security personnel were inadequate,” the police officer said.
“Due to the mismanagement, people tried to escape through the entrance gate during the stampede. Both the gates and the approach road were narrow, which contributed to the accident,” he said.
– Ends
(Based on inputs from agencies)
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
