Siddheshwarnath Temple Stampede | Stampede at Baba Siddheshwar Nath Temple in Jehanabad, Bihar, 7 devotees died, 35 injured | Video

 

This incident happened on the fourth Monday of the holy month of Sawan, when the temple is usually crowded. Eyewitnesses present in the temple said that there was a crowd of devotees in the Siddheshwarnath temple since Sunday night. A stampede broke out at around 1 am. All the people present in the temple started running to save their lives, due to which dozens of people fell in the temple premises and were seriously injured.

Earlier on July 2, more than 120 people were killed in a stampede in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. The stampede took place at a congregation led by Baba Narayan Hari, also known as ‘Bhole Baba’. The stampede occurred during a satsang (prayer meeting) attended by thousands of people. The event, organised privately, had permission from the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM). Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Singh had said that overcrowding was one of the reasons behind the deadly incident.

 

This tragic incident is not unprecedented, as stampedes at temples and religious gatherings in India have claimed many lives in the past few years. Notable among these are the stampede at the Mandhardevi temple in Maharashtra in 2005, which resulted in the death of over 340 devotees, and the 2008 tragedy at the Chamunda Devi temple in Rajasthan, which killed at least 250 people. Another stampede at a religious gathering at the Naina Devi temple in Himachal Pradesh in 2008 claimed 162 lives.