Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Blame public too – not just govt and railways' that was published in Newsband

Blame public too – not just govt and railways

Thirty six precious lives were lost at the Kumbh in Allahabad on the most holy day of the ‘sacred bath’. The deaths occurred not at the site of the Kumbh, but at the Railway station. The tragedy was undoubtedly preventable. Both Uttar Pradesh government and the Railways are blaming one another for the tragedy. The truth is both should be blamed for mismanagement.

There was proper crowd management at the Sangam, where some three crore people took the holy dip without any major catastrophe; Why the same kind of planning was not made at the railway station.

There should have been arrangement of enough trains and buses to take away the lakhs of pilgrims. If this was done then the two stampedes that occurred would not have happened.

Like every year, this year too, there was no place to stand and pilgrims were falling over each other. Finally, the pedestrian overbridge collapsed under the sheer weight of thousands of people fighting their way to the platforms to catch the next train. This led to the stampede, collapse, and the deaths.

The real question now is how to prevent a recurrence of such preventable tragedies? Whenever Kumbh Mela occurs, the state government should leave no loophole in the matter of maintaining law and order. The railways also cannot evade responsibility. They should make arrangements for enough trains during such occasion and also they should pay extra attention to crowd management.

Another sad thing is that there was no adequate medical help after the accident. For hours, the dead and injured lay there without attention. During such occasions, at least the medical help should be made easily available.

Indian railway has learnt nothing from the past. It's the responsibility of the authorities (both government and railways) to be prepared for such situations so that such incidents could be avoided. A professional approach should be adopted during an important occasion like Kumbh Mela.  

Even the people who attend Kumbh Mela every year don’t learn from their experiences. Why do they need to follow outdated customs and traditions? Why can't they go there at some other time and avoid rush on that specific day? Why do they harbour blind belief that if only they go there on that specific day their sins will be washed away and not any other day of the year? The mentality of these people needs to be changed. Even politicians are setting wrong example by going there on that specific day. How many times innocent lives got lost in such Kumbh Melas? Yet they don’t learn from their experiences and change their way of thinking.