63 die, dozens injured in Indian temple stampede
KUNDA. March 5. KAZINFORM A stampede among thousands of poor villagers scrambling for free food and clothes at a commemorative event killed 63 people Thursday at a Hindu temple in northern India and injured dozens of others; Kazinform refers to the Arab News.
Nearly all the victims were women and children. The stampede was so intense it knocked down a gate at the compound surrounding the temple in the small town of Kunda, on the northern plains of Uttar Pradesh state.
"How could this happen in such a holy place?" cried Phool Chand Saroj, a 48-year-old farmer whose wife, daughter and grandmother were killed in the stampede. "If they had been more careful about letting in the crowds this would not have happened." While most men in the farming region worked in their fields, women from surrounding villages gathered with their children Thursday in Kunda for a midday handout of donations, an anniversary event marking the death of the wife of local religious leader Kripalu Maharaj. Giving food and other alms to the poor on death anniversaries is a common Hindu tradition.
The crush of people turned into a stampede that killed 63 and injured 44, government official Ashok Kumar said.
Hours after the tragedy, piles of unclaimed shoes sat inside the compound where victims had placed them before entering the temple.
The compound in Kunda, some 110 miles (180 kilometers) southeast of the state capital of Lucknow, appeared to have been undergoing renovations. Bamboo and iron rods used in construction were strewn about the grounds, possibly causing some people to trip; Kazinform cites the Arab News.
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