BBC investigation reveals hidden deaths at India festival crush

Warning: The story contains sad details

BBC Indian investigations reveal that Indian officials quietly paid compensation to the families of more people than they recognize a. Crushing the deadly crowd in the MilaHindu Festival, which is the largest religious gathering in the world.

The number of official deaths is 37, but the BBC found 26 additional cases, as families received a partial compensation in cash, and 18 other deaths in which no batch was made.

On March 25, a team of police officers wearing clear clothes from the state of Uttar Pradesh in India arrived in the neighboring Bihar with packages of money.

The team visited the city of Jobalgang, where they met with the 62 -year -old Tara Devy family. They handed over more than 500,000 rupees ($ 5,758; 4,291 pounds) in cash for her son, Danjay Gond, and asked him to register a statement on the video.

In the video, Dhananjay presented himself, saying: “My mother and I went to Kumbh Mela for a sacred retreat. My mother died. The officers came from the top and gave us 500,000 rupees. We have received it.”

Danangay says his mother was killed in Crush In the city of Prayagraj on January 29.

The UP government has not yet issued an official list of Crush victims. Ibn Tara Devi says that the police told him that the money he obtained was the first batch of Rupees of 2.5 million rupees that officially promised the families of the victims. Dhananjay says he did not receive the remaining rupees.

The UP says it has paid 2.5 million rupees, each for families of 35 victims (out of 37 deaths, one of the victims is still unidentified, and another who has no legal heir). A judicial committee of three members was established to investigate the accident and submit a report within a month whose term was extended.

However, the BBC found another family that was given a 2.5 million rupees examination. For other 35 victims, compensation was transferred to relatives bank accounts.

Regardless of this, the BBC found 26 cases – including Tara Devi – where the police paid 500,000 rupees in cash in people’s homes.

In many cases, officials had signed families on documents to blame health issues of deaths, although they insisted that their relatives died in crushing. (UP does not usually compensate for normal deaths during Kumbh, which is held every 12 years.)

The BBC also confirmed 18 deaths that no compensation was given (except for the above case as there was no legal heir).

Evidence of four separate crushing incidents was found in Prayagraj on January 29, although Prime Minister Yuji Adyanath claims it was only one event in the so -called Sanjam nose – the meeting point of three sacred rivers, Ganga, Yamona and the legendary sarcawati.

In the weeks that followed Kumbh Crush, the BBC met more than 100 families in 11 states in India, who claimed that their relatives died in the tragedy. 82 deaths were verified in tangible evidence, with the exception of cases that lack proof.

Some families are held after death, morgue slips, death certificates, photos and videos as a guide. Local newspapers that were examined from the BBC and spoke with the provincial correspondents to follow the place where the bodies were received, and these sites were drawn, then the families of the victims visited.

The BBC conducted an interview with families and eyewitnesses to rebuild the schedules of each case – when the victims left for the sacred retreat, the time of crushing, the nearby monuments, and the distance from the site of the bath and the direct later.

Among these detailed accounts, clear patterns appeared, which led to the identification of four crushing sites: Sangam Nose, JHUSI side of Samudrakup Chauraha, Airavat Marg, and Mukti Marg Chauraha near Kalpavriksha Gate.

Most full compensation cases are included 2.5m -rupee the death site called “Ward no. 7, Fort Cantt, Prayagraj”, about 1.5 km (0.9 miles) from Sangam Nose.

On the other hand, cases that received 500,000 rupees mostly mention “Sector -20 or Sector 21, Kombe Mila, JHUSI”. Some of these families claim that their relatives also died near the nose of Sanjam, but their certificates are wrongly citing JHUSI – perhaps to reduce the size of the tragedy there.

As for the 18 families who have not received any compensation, there is no common thread that connects them.

For example, in a single crushing location, the British Broadcasting Corporation has identified five bodies through pictures and numbers issued during post -death procedures. Among them, the families of three victims received 500,000 rupees in cash, while the other two received nothing. Some other families have photographs of the crushing day that shows the bodies of their relatives, but these deaths have not been recognized by the government.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has repeatedly tried to contact government officials, and send an email to the information management and the provincial judge. Despite promises from the provincial judge office, no call has been arranged. Attempts to reach the police chief have not been answered, while Praayagraj Police Commissioner rejected the time of the accident, Tarun Gaba, and Mila Vijay Kiran Anand officer answering the questions.

The BBC also found evidence of the deaths in the crushing that occurred in sites other than the nose of Sanjam, which the government recognized by giving some compensation.

At Jaunpur’s Up, Dharmbir Rajbhar received 500,000 rupees each due to the death of his wife and daughter in Airavat Marg Crush.

A video clip filmed by the BBC on January 29, the family sitting with both bodies on the site. At the homeland, Rajbhar offered the cash beams and said: “The government promised 2.5 million rupees, but the police gave only 500,000 rupees to each of them and left.”

UP police have also traveled hundreds of kilometers to Paschim Bardhaman in the Western Bengal state, where they handed over more than 500,000 rupees to the Vinod Ruidas family.

Not all families have accepted the amount, though. In Bihar, the relatives of Snina Davi refused. They told the BBC that they refused to “sign false documents.”

The BBC also set at least five families that lost its relatives near the Kubbricha gate, about 3-4 km from the nose of Sanjam.

Kusum Devi, the wife of Panne Lal Sahni, says her husband died around 8 am on January 29. “People were wandering in his body. I sat in the sun with his body until 4 pm. No one gave us the water,” she says. The family received 500,000 rupees in cash.

Relatives of all five people who died near Kalpavriksha gate had similar stories of a novel – sat with the bodies from morning to evening.

Over time, 18 other families claiming that their relatives died in crushing, but they have not yet received compensation.

Among the 18 Mina Pande from Sultanbur, who traveled to compound with her husband, and Jar Archana Singh. Archana remembers sitting with Meena’s body on Crush until 3 pm – after seven hours of crushing.

Although 2,750 CCTVS claims that support artificial intelligence, 50,000 security personnel, drones and ambulances, no assistance reached.

Archana says by the afternoon.

“We had no choice but to carry it home in our car.”

Like the Mina Pande family, the relatives of Xiamlal Gonde from Diorea are still waiting for compensation.

His son, Bhajerithi Gond, works as a daily wage worker in Bangaluru. After the crushing, he traveled to Prayagraj looking for his father, and arrived at the hospital on February 3.

According to the hospital slipping, Xiamlal Gond was brought at 10.02 local time on January 29.

“My father was listed as not specified. To keep the records, they are [hospital staff] Keep a file. They took a picture of the body in the case that was found and pasted into a record. “

He added, “It was difficult to determine his identity through the image. After the fall, his head was bending, pushing the chest up, and turning his face a little.”

Bhajerithi says that hospital staff will not provide him with a death certificate or any other papers.

“They told me to take the body, but I said I will only do it if some official procedures are followed,” he said.

It took four months before getting the death certificate. But he is still waiting for compensation for his loss.

“The government did not recognize that my father died in crushing.”

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