(3 Jul 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hathras, Uttar Pradesh – 3 July 2024
1. Various of man crying, sitting in ambulance next to body bag
2. Ambulance driving away
3. Man crying
4. Wide of ambulance
5. Various of injured in hospital
6. SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Sheila Maurya, injured police officer:
“My duty was on the stage and as soon as the program ended and the crowd started leaving, Ieft too with the crowd…it was very crowded. There was no space to keep our feet. People were moving out, stepping on others. Then suddenly people started falling. I tried to pick up some women.”
7. Various of medical staff tending to injured woman
8. SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Sheila Maurya, injured police officer:
“After they fell, I tried to pick up a few but I also fell.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh – 3 July 2024
9. Wide of injured in hospital
10. SOUNDBITE (Hindi) no name given, injured:
"I could not see anything. I was shouting. 'Please pull me out, pull me out.'”
11. SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Amar Pal, injured:
"I was at the gate. After I fell, I don’t know how many people stepped over me. So, I got hurt here (pointing to his head).”
++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
Authorities say massive overcrowding, insufficient exits, and other factors contributed to a deadly stampede at a religious festival in Northern India that killed at least 121 people.

Five more people died on Wednesday morning, local official Manish Chaudhry said, and 28 were still being treated in hospital.

The stampede happened on Tuesday afternoon in a village in Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh state, as large crowds rushed to exit a makeshift tent.

It was not immediately clear what sparked the panic.

Authorities are investigating what happened and have launched a search for a Hindu guru known locally as Bhole Baba, as well as other organisers.

Deadly stampedes are relatively common at Indian religious festivals, where large crowds gather in small areas with shoddy infrastructure and few safety measures.

Overcrowding, poor planning and bad weather were among factors noted as contributing to the disaster.

Some quarter of a million people turned up for an event that was permitted to accommodate 80,000, held in a tent set up in a muddy field. It's not clear how many made it inside the tent.

Utter Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath told reporters that a crowd of devotees surged towards the preacher to touch him as he was descending from the stage, causing chaos as volunteers struggled to intervene.

Police officer Sheila Maurya, on duty at the event, was injured during the chaos.

“There was no space to keep our feet. People were moving out stepping on others. Then suddenly people started falling. I tried to pick up some women,” she said.

An initial report from the police suggests at this point thousands of people thronged toward the exit, where many slipped on the muddy ground, causing them to fall and be crushed by the crowds. Most of the dead were women.

AP Video shot by Rajesh Kumar Singh and Manoj Aligad

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