Unfazed devotees shrug off stampede at Hindu festival

Unfazed devotees shrug off stampede at Hindu festival

PRAYAGRAJ
Unfazed devotees shrug off stampede at Hindu festival

Throngs of devotees at the world's biggest religious gathering bathed in Indian rivers on Thursday, undeterred by a stampede a day earlier that killed at least 30 people.

Haberin Devamı

The Kumbh Mela attracts tens of millions of Hindu faithful every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj, but has a record of deadly crowd incidents.

Jan. 29's pre-dawn disaster, which saw a surging crowd spill out of a police cordon and trample bystanders, prompted some spooked pilgrims to leave the festival.

But many more were still arriving in the stampede's aftermath to participate in what they said was a matter of religious obligation.

"We've obviously heard about the stampede," 21-year-old Naveen Pradhan, who arrived at the festival with his family hours after the disaster, told AFP.

"But this is a holy thing, a religious thing, something we should do as Hindus, and my family wouldn't have missed this no matter what."

The six-week Kumbh Mela is the single biggest milestone on the Hindu religious calendar, and Jan. 29 marked one of the holiest days of the festival, coinciding with an alignment of the Solar System's planets.

Despite the early morning disaster, saffron-clad holy men continued with the day's rituals, leading millions into a sin-cleansing dip by the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.

More than 10 million others immersed themselves in the waters between midnight and midday yesterday, according to organizers.

The Kumbh Mela is rooted in a mythological Hindu battle between deities and demons for control of a pitcher containing the nectar of immortality.

Organizers have likened the scale of this year's festival to a temporary country, forecasting up to 400 million pilgrims would visit before the final day on Feb. 26.

Authorities waited nearly 18 hours after Jan. 29's stampede to give an official death toll, an apparent effort to minimize disruption to the events.