Goa stampede: Minor incident happened at same site during last year's fest, says official

Panaji: A committee probing the stampede at a temple festival in North Goa has found that a similar incident on a minor scale had occurred at the same event, and the spot was accident-prone, a senior official said on Sunday.

Six persons were killed, and more than 70 sustained injuries in the stampede that occurred when thousands of devotees thronged the narrow lanes leading to the temple of Goddess Sree Lairai Devi in Shirgaon village for an annual festival in the wee hours of Saturday.

The official said the fact-finding committee constituted by the government recorded statements of senior police and district officials in charge of crowd management at the event.

The government has constituted a committee chaired by Sandeep Jacques, commissioner and secretary (Revenue), with deputy inspector general Varsha Sharma, Director of Transport Pravimal Abhishek and Superintendent of Police Tikam Singh Verma to probe into the incident.

Talking to PTI, the senior government official said the stampede broke out on a slope, which was prone to such accidents every year, and the committee is trying to find out the exact trigger for it.

"We have gathered that a similar incident, but on a minor scale, had happened during the temple festival last year at the same spot," he said.

The official said the committee will also examine why precautions were not taken to prevent the incident.

"The committee has started its investigation. It has recorded the statements of Collector Sneha Gitte, Superintendent of Police Akshat Kaushal, Deputy Superintendent of Police Jivba Dalvi, Deputy Collector Bhimnath Khorjuvekar, members of the temple committee and others to get the exact picture of what happened on the fateful day." He said several views are being gathered during the investigation, which will be segregated to form a strong and factual report about the incident.

"It will require at least a couple of more days to gather the inputs and file the report," he said.

The official said the committee will also interact with people injured in the stampede.

"Some of the victims have been discharged from hospitals. We will give them a day to stabilise at home before recording their statements," he said.

He said the committee is also investigating the report that a fight between two groups of pilgrims had triggered the stampede.

He said despite lanes leading to the temple being narrow, the temple committee had allowed shops to be set up on the route, which further congested the area.

Director General of Police Alok Kumar had on Saturday said that 30,000 to 40,000 people had gathered for the festival, and some were standing on a slope, where they fell, causing others to tumble and fall on each other.

He said about 50 people fell on the slope, and the stampede was confined to that spot.