Kolkata stampede: Former cops flag lack of crowd management, space constraints

The death of 19 people at the Chore Bagan Durga Puja stampede pointed to a lack of planning and bad space management, several former officers of the Kolkata Police said on Sunday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a former police commissioner said all information surfacing after the tragedy pointed at lacunae in crowd management.

“The Kolkata Police traditionally divided community pujas into three categories: big, medium and small. Planning for crowd and vehicular traffic management was made well in advance. The Chore Bagan puja may have drawn huge crowds this year but it used to fall in the small category a decade ago,” the officer said.

“Reports surfacing from the spot indicate that an 11 or 11.5 feet wide exit point was highly inadequate to handle a crowd caught in a stampede. Moreover, I saw videos showing stalls set up outside the exit point. These made the road even narrower. An exit point must be twice as wide as an entry point because it is meant for mass evacuation during an emergency,” he added.

A retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer said, “Numerous social media videos shot before and after the incident show people complaining that there were no policemen in or outside the pandal. This was unthinkable during our tenure. People also alleged that a parallel guarded path for VIPs narrowed the general entry path down to 7.5 or 8 feet. IPS officers must be on the streets to inspect these things,” he said.

Hours after the tragedy, chief minister Suvendu Adhikari apparently decided to rely on the experience of senior IPS officers who served in important posts in Kolkata,official said.

On Sunday, Adhikari formed an expert team for site inspection and inquiry into the incident. disaster management secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh, director general of fire services Anuj Sharma ( a former Kolkata Police commissioner) and Special Task Force (STF) ADG Javed Shamim to audit safety arrangements at all major pandals. Three other IPS officers were also made part of the team, a person familiar with the matter said.

Meanwhile, Sushanta Shibani Pal, the artist who designed the mandap (the seat of the idol) at Chore Bagan, said no single factor could be blamed for the tragedy.

“The entry and exit points are both 11.5 feet wide. Huge crowds passed through these points for three days before the incident happened. The tragedy occurred because many people took shelter from the rain under the covered pathways and then tried to flee when rumours spread that the pandal was collapsing. All factors led to an incident that happened in seconds,” Pal told the media.

Since several roads in north Kolkata are narrow and carry large crowds during Durga Puja, the police imposed restrictions on public assembly at some points on Sunday evening, officials said.