Multiple videos have now emerged showing there were clear signs of danger at Kolkata’s Chorebagan Durga Puja pandal, where a stampede killed 19 people on Saturday night.
Police Probe ‘Announcement’
He also announced that a fact-finding committee headed by a sitting high court judge would probe the incident. People are packed shoulder to shoulder and chest to back, with no room to move, and some are seen clutching the wall to avoid falling. Another video shows a large crowd rushing into the pandal, some of them running with umbrellas in the rain. Police have registered a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and arrested seven people, including the organisers. Those arrested include Chorebagan Durga Puja committee secretary Raj Kumar Sewda and vice-president Santanu Dubey. Also arrested are Biplab Mukherjee, who was engaged in building the bamboo structure; Koushik Saha and Pintu Dey, who were responsible for crowd control; and Suman Chakraborty and Rajesh Pal, who were in charge of private security.
Another 49-second clip shot on a phone by a man in the crowd shows dozens of people trapped inside a narrow, low-roofed, covered and barricaded passage, with women and children crying for help. The chief minister announced Rs 25 lakh in compensation and government jobs for the families of those killed.
A senior police officer has said investigators were examining a video in which the announcer could be heard saying the pandal was about to collapse. “We are trying to identify who made the announcement and what prompted it,” the officer told a news agency. “Initial input from the ACP [Assistant Commissioner of Police] who was present on the spot says that this thing was triggered after an announcement by a private security agency and the blowing of some whistles,” he later said to ANI. Family members of two of the victims said private guards blowing whistles near the pandal had set off a rush among those waiting to enter, Adhikari said.
