Unfazed devotees shrug off stampede at India mega-festival

by Bhuvan BAGGA and Devesh MISHRA

Throngs of devotees at the world's biggest religious gathering bathed in Indian rivers on Thursday, undeterred by a stampede a day earlier that killed at least 30 people.

The Kumbh Mela attracts tens of millions of Hindu faithful every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj, but has a record of deadly crowd incidents.

Wednesday's pre-dawn disaster, which saw a surging crowd spill out of a police cordon and trample bystanders, prompted some spooked pilgrims to leave the festival.

But many more were still arriving in the stampede's aftermath to participate in what they said was a matter of religious obligation.

"We've obviously heard about the stampede," 21-year-old Naveen Pradhan, who arrived at the festival with his family hours after the disaster, told AFP.

"But this is a holy thing, a religious thing, something we should do as Hindus, and my family wouldn't have missed this no matter what."

The six-week Kumbh Mela is the single biggest milestone on the Hindu religious calendar, and Wednesday marked one of the holiest days of the festival, coinciding with an alignment of the Solar System's planets.

Despite the early morning disaster, saffron-clad holy men continued with the day's rituals, leading millions into a sin-cleansing dip by the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.

More than 10 million others immersed themselves in the waters between midnight and midday on Thursday, according to organisers.

"The journey was challenging -- the trains were packed, the train stations were packed," pharmacist Padmabati Dam, who travelled more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) to reach the festival, told AFP.

"We were tired after such a long journey but as soon as we took a dip in the river we just felt so fresh and happy. It was as if all that inconvenience was really worth it."

- Mythological battle -

The Kumbh Mela is rooted in a mythological Hindu battle between deities and demons for control of a pitcher containing the nectar of immortality.

Organisers have likened the scale of this year's festival to a temporary country, forecasting up to 400 million pilgrims would visit before the final day on February 26.

Authorities waited nearly 18 hours after Wednesday's stampede to give an official death toll, an apparent effort to minimise disruption to the events.

Even before the tragedy, attendees were fuming over what they said was poor crowd management.

Reserved pathways and cordoned-off areas for eminent attendees have been a source of vehement complaints.

Those grievances were picked up by Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, who blamed the disaster on poor crowd control that had prioritised the comfort of distinguished visitors.

The Uttar Pradesh state government, responsible for overseeing the festival, ordered an overhaul of crowd management on Thursday, including a ban on VIP passes and vehicle traffic, local media reported.

Police this year installed hundreds of cameras at the festival site and on roads leading to the sprawling encampment, mounted on poles and a fleet of overhead drones.

The surveillance network feeds into an artificial intelligence system at a command and control centre meant to alert staff if sections of the crowd get so concentrated that they pose a safety threat.

Previous Kumbh Mela festivals have also seen deadly crowd incidents.

In 1954, more than 400 people died after they were trampled or drowned on a single day of the festival, one of the largest tolls in a crowd-related disaster globally.

Another 36 people were crushed to death in 2013, the last time the festival was staged in Prayagraj.

© Agence France-Presse