Even though the railways had anticipated more than three crore people to converge at Mahakumbh on “Shahi Snan” days, it was caught napping when it came to making full-proof arrangement at the Allahabad station where 36 innocent people lost their lives due to stampede on Sunday evening. While the railways minister, in an apparent callous remark, stated that it was not possible to run a train every 10 minutes to clear the rush, the officials indulged in a blamegame by pointing finger at the state government for allowing a massive crowd to come to the station.
Railways minister Pawan Kumar Bansal later in the evening announced a three-member inquiry committee, headed by additional member (traffic) of Railway Board, Devi Prasad Pandey, to probe the causes behind the stampede. He said “prima facie” the stampede appears to be a result of people entering the station both through the city side as well as the civil lines side, which was contrary to the plan the railways had made in consultation with the local administration.
Though the officials denied charges of the lathicharge, which was alleged to have set off the stampede, top brass of the railway protection force (RPF) were summoned to the ministry of home affairs on Monday, sources said. The role of the RPF has apparently come for flakes as it failed in managing the crowd, which was allowed inside the station despite being overcrowded. The railways is deploying about 650 RPF personnel in and around Allahabad station for better crowd management.
Before rushing to Allahabad for an on the spot assessment, Mr Bansal, while announcing an ex-gratia of `1 lakh as compensation for the families of those killed in the stampede, told reporters “there are a total of 12,000 trains on Indian Railway’s 65,000-km-long route system, which carries 2.3 crore passengers in a day. So all the trains can not reach at one spot in a day as there are limitations on the part of railways to carry crores of passengers in a given day.”
Mr Bansal also stated that no railings were broken. He added that enclosures were broken due to the heavy rush. “Even if we want to run trains every 10 minutes we can not do so as there has to be a gap for the safety reasons,” Mr Bansal reasoned. However, the railways had very much anticipated that there would be massive turnout of the devotees.