At least 18 people were killed and over a dozen injured in a stampede at New Delhi railway station on Saturday night as passengers rushed to board trains to the Hindu Maha Kumbh festival.
The dead included nearly a dozen women and five children who were trapped in a sudden crush of passengers running to board a pair of special trains to Prayagraj that were running late.
The incident occurred on platforms 14 and 15 after the station authorities wrongly announced a change of platforms, causing confusion and chaos, preliminary reports said.
Pictures and videos of overcrowding at the railway station showed hundreds of passengers stumbling and pouring over each other on the platforms without any security measures in place. Railway authorities initially dismissed reports of a crowd crush as rumours but confirmed the death toll after midnight.
Porters at the railway station called ambulances after noticing people falling and getting injured on the platforms. “Several porters gathered there to stop the crowd. We took at least 15 bodies and loaded them into an ambulance. There were only shoes and clothes on the platform. When the crowd waiting at platform 12 and the crowd from outside tried to reach platform 16, people started colliding and fell on the escalator and stairs. We called the police, fire tenders, and three to four ambulances reached there, and people were taken to the hospital,” one porter told the news agency ANI.
Delhi’s acting chief minister, Atishi, said many of the victims were pilgrims on their way to attend the Maha Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest religious gathering, in Prayagraj in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
Narendra Modi said he was "distressed by the stampede”. "My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones. I pray that the injured have a speedy recovery. The authorities are assisting all those who have been affected by this stampede," the prime minister said on X.
The railway minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, said the situation was brought under control by the Delhi police and the Railway Protection Force.
He also announced an investigation.
“The entire team is working to assist all those who have been affected by this tragic incident,” he said on X.
Opposition leaders criticised poor infrastructure and arrangements by authorities for thousands of devotees wanting to attend the festival.
Senior Congress party member Rahul Gandhi called the incident “extremely sad” and “distressing”. The incident showed the “failure” of the railway system and the government’s “insensitivity”.
“Given the large number of devotees heading to Prayagraj, better arrangements should have been made at the station,” he posted on X. “The government and administration must ensure that no one loses their life due to mismanagement and negligence.”
Priyanka Chaturvedi, a member of parliament, called for the resignation of the railway minister.
“Those who keep saying ‘not the right time to criticise or seek accountability’ after every tragedy are effectively telling the reel mantri ‘not the time to take onus and resign’. How many derailments, accidents, stampedes, lives lost, passenger fare raised, passengers having to travel in inhuman way will it take to become the right time for seeking accountability?” she said.
India has witnessed several railway accidents in the past two years, including a collision in 2023 that killed at least 288 people.
The crowd crush at the New Delhi railway station is the second fatal stampede involving Maha Kumbh pilgrims. At least 30 people were confirmed killed in a pre-dawn stampede at the Maha Kumbh grounds in Prayagraj last month as millions of Hindus gathered to take a bath in sacred river waters on the most auspicious day of the six-week festival. The actual death toll was 79, according to an investigation by independent media outlet Newslaundry.
