BBC Hindi, Delhi
On Sunday morning, the New Delhi Railway Station in the capital of India looked similar to it always; Hurry, with their many platforms full of eager, impatient passengers waiting to catch their trains.
But on Saturday night, deadly crushing – allegedly caused by overcrowded movement – killed at least 18 people and left several injured.
According to officials, two trains were late at the station, while the third – headed to the town of Molagraj, where a massive Hindu Hindu religious festival, Kumbh Mela – waited for them to deviate while people were pushing against each other.
The demolition happened after “the passenger slipped and fell on the stairs,” said the spokesman of the Indian Railways.
Opposition leaders criticized the Government, claiming that Indian railways did not make appropriate arrangements for the management management at the station.
An investigation has been launched and the authorities have announced a fee for the victims.
Asked by BBC -a safety and security at the station, Pankaj Gangwar, the chief general commissioner of the northern rail security, said “Let the investigation be completed first”.
In India, joints like these are not heard, where at religious events, festivals and public areas are often overcrowded at religious events. Last month, 30 people were killed and dozens of injured in the joint on Kumbh Mela.
The crowds at the train station were also not unexpected – trains are by far the cheapest way to transport in India and is common for the number of passengers that have far exceeded the capacity of trains.
Eyewitnesses and families of victims recount their difficulties. Many of them were angry with power and police officers at the train station, who they say did not work on time.
Some eyewitnesses said that sympathy was not limited to one place, but took place on the overhead bridge, staircases and platforms.
Bipin Jha was at the station to meet his wife Mamtu, who arrived on the train. She died in sympathy.
“I met her on the platform and we walked on the toe bridge above her head when she was trapped in sympathy. She died before my eyes. I will live my life with guilt that I have not saved her,” he says.
“We were on the stairs, we suddenly felt pushing from behind. We fell, along with many others, and were trapped under the bodies. I barely breathed,” said Seema, whose sister, whose law Pinky Devi died on the staircase.
The USha Devi, who traveled to the East State of Bihar at the wedding of her nephew, said Chaos broke out the moment she arrived on the platform.
“Many people have fallen. There were scattered things everywhere, food products and clothes. I was on the verge of fainting. So many people collapsed. The audience was so thick that we couldn’t board our train.”
The wife of Umesh Giri Shilam Devi was among the victims.
“The audience became uncontrollable,” he told BBC Hindi as he waited in front of the morgue at Delhi’s Faculty of Medicine, Maulana Azad.
“I have seen several bodies already there. People collided with each other and others started falling over them,” said Mr. Giri, who was also injured.
He added that it took time to arrive and prayed for help officers.
Older police and railway officials at the scene did not respond to the request of the BBC for comment.
Most of the victims were taken to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital in New Delhi, where police and paramilitary forces were deployed, and railway authorities set up a service to help families. The press was not allowed to enter the hospital on Saturday.
The victims’ cousins shared their sadness with journalists waiting outside, and at the same time expressed anger to institutions at the hospital.
“More people are charged on one bed,” Schobha, Sister Shila Devija, was allegedly.
Others exit the hospital also confirmed this. Hospital authorities did not respond to the request of the BBC for comment.
At Lady Hardenge Hospital, a bereaved Rija family, 7, she completed the paperwork so she could receive her body.
“No child deserves to die like this,” her uncle said, wiping her tears.
