Hathras stampede: UP CM announces judicial inquiry, Bhole Baba says ready for probe

A judicial inquiry has been ordered into the Hathras stampede tragedy in Uttar Pradesh in which more than 100 people were killed at a religious gathering.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday (July 3) said the probe will also look into the possibility of a “conspiracy” behind the stampede that killed 121 people.

Bhole Baba ready for probe

The police also filed a First Information Report (FIR) against the organisers of the ‘satsang’ Tuesday near Phulhari village, accusing them of cramming 2.5 lakh people into the venue when they had obtained permission for only 80,000.

'Satsang' preacher Bhole Baba’s lawyer A P Singh said the preacher is ready to cooperate with the state administration and the police probing Tuesday's stampede. "Some anti-social elements hatched a conspiracy,” he claimed.

'Mukhya sevadar' Devprakash Madhukar and other organisers are named as the accused in the FIR filed at the Sikandra Rau police station late Tuesday. The preacher Jagat Guru Saakar Vishwahari Bhole Baba is not in the list.

The chief minister said the judicial probe team will include retired police and administration officials. “If this is not an accident, then whose conspiracy is this? All of this will be probed,” he told reporters during his visit to Hathras, where he met the injured.

2 pleas filed in courts

At least two pleas were filed in courts Wednesday over the tragedy.

An advocate filed a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking the appointment of a five-member expert committee under the supervision of a retired apex court judge to probe the incident. In the Allahabad High Court another PIL sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

But Adityanath and the FIR appeared to give a clean chit to the local administration, seemingly laying the blame on the ‘sevadars’ looking after the arrangements at the ‘satsang’.

The organisers tried to hide the actual number of people coming to the event by concealing evidence and throwing slippers and other belongings of the devotees in nearby fields, the FIR alleged.

The FIR said police and administration officials did everything possible with available resources and sent the injured to hospitals but the organisers and 'sevadars' did not cooperate.

According to the FIR and a preliminary report by the Sikandra Rau sub divisional magistrate, the stampede took place as the preacher left the venue.

People rushed towards him – apparently to have a 'darshan' and to collect some soil from the spot he had walked upon – and the 'sevadars’ shoved them away. The SDM’s report said many slipped while descending a slope next to the highway.

Why Baba is not named in FIR?

The CM said the "sevadars" should have taken the victims to hospital. People were dying and the sevadars fled, he claimed.

Asked why the preacher was not named in the FIR as an accused, Adityanath said, "Prima facie, the case has been filed against those who applied for permission for the event. Whoever is responsible for this will come under its purview." The government has formed a special investigation team led by Agra's additional director general of police Anupam Kulshreshtha.

Asphyxia due to compression was the leading cause of death, a senior doctor at an Etah hospital said.

The FIR has been registered under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 110 (attempt to commit culpable homicide), 126 (2) (wrongful restraint), 223 (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by the public servant), 238 (causing disappearance of evidence), an official said.

A day after tragedy, family members tried to come to terms with their loss.

(With agency inputs)