Maha Kumbh stampede | Reports claim 2 other crowd crushes on same day as Oppn slams govt over death toll

'We will investigate the videos which have surfaced and ensure corrective actions,’' a top senior official said.

Lucknow: Even as the opposition leaders accused the Uttar Pradesh government of hiding the number of deaths in the stampede near the Sangam at Maha Kumbh on the occasion of Mauni Amavasya on Wednesday, new reports have claimed that there were two more crowd crushes on that day-all within a periphery of a few kilometres.

Purported videos surfaced on social media on Thursday along with the claims that a second stampede had taken place at Jhusi, across the Ganga and barely three kilometres away from the Maha Kumbh area a few hours after the first one and had claimed seven lives.

Mela DIG Vaibhav Krishna had said that 30 devotees had lost their lives and 60 others injured in the stampede near Sangam. There was no mention of the second crush that reportedly occurred at Jhusi.

He, however, was quoted as having said that the police did not have any information about the second crush at Jhusi. ‘’We will investigate the videos which have surfaced and ensure corrective actions,’’ he said.

Now new reports, which surfaced on Friday, claimed that a third stampede had also taken place in the Maha Kumbh on the same day at Sector 10 near old GT Road. The report claimed that seven women had been killed in the third crush. It also said that the third stampede happened while preparing to clear the way for the vehicle of a ‘Mahamandaleshwar’ (a religious post in an Akhara).

As the Mela administration brought in force new safety changes, which included cancelling all VVIP passes and making the Maha Kumbh a 'no vehicle' zone, the opposition leaders demanded that the state government make the names of the dead public.

Questions were being raised on the figures released by the police as they were made public almost 17 hours after the incident. Throughout the day, the Mela officials kept dodging the questions on the casualties. A senior police official even denied that there was any stampede and deaths and said that there was some ‘overcrowding’.

Even though prime minister Narendra Modi expressed condolences over the loss of lives in the stampede, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath had then claimed that some people were injured. Adityanath’s acknowledgement of deaths came only after the Mela administration confirmed 30 deaths.

A senior official of the Mela administration said that news of more stampedes would only have created more panic and hence the authorities might have decided not to disclose them.