New Delhi: Around 1.30 am on Sunday, hours after the stampede at New Delhi railway station (NDLS), the scene outside the mortuary at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narain hospital (LNJP) was heart-rending. Police barricades and ambulances stood as mute testimony to the tragedy that claimed 18 lives. Anxious family members and relatives tried to enter the hospital to check on their loved ones. Others were waiting to collect the bodies of their loved ones. CRPF and Delhi Police personnel maintained a tight vigil at the premises.
The bodies of the 18 victims—four minors, aged between seven and 15; 10 women and three men—had been sent to for post-mortem to different hospitals in the Capital. While 10 were at LNJP, five were sent to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital (RML) and three to Lady Hardinge Hospital. ThePrint has since learned that the bodies were handed over to next of kin after autopsy.
The Casualty at LNJP received 12 patients. Ritu Saxena, Deputy Medical Superintendent, LNJP, in a statement to ThePrint said two patients “absconded”, five left against medical advice (LAMA), two—Manisha Devi and Shivam Shukla—were admitted to the orthopaedics department and two others, Neetu and Lal Bahadur, had been discharged.
As grieving families of the injured and dead trickled into LNJP, shock and tears were the overriding emotions. Several had travelled from outside Delhi after receiving frantic phone calls about the stampede.
Chandni, barefoot and exhausted, had come from Panipat with her family to collect the body of her mother, Lalita Devi, from the LNJP mortuary. Accompanied by her two brothers, father, and uncle, she stood in silence, unable to comprehend what had happened.
Her cousin, Girdhari, who was with Lalita Devi at the time, said, “We had travelled from Patna to Delhi and were going home to Panipat. As we reached the platform, there was a sudden rush on the stairs near platform 14 and people started falling over each other. I saw my aunt being crushed in the crowd,” he said.
He claimed there was no one from the railway administration at the scene except for two Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel who too were helpless against the surging crowd. “The police and the ambulances arrived much later,” he said.
Lalita Devi and her husband worked as ragpickers, barely making Rs 200 a day, most of which was spent on food, said Chandni.
Also Read: Delayed trains, rumours & mismanagement—how stampede unfolded at New Delhi railway station
‘Saw my wife struggling to escape’
Umesh, still in a daze, was sitting on the pavement outside the mortuary. His wife had died in the stampede. They and their two children were on way to the Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj when chaos unfolded. “My wife was ahead of us, I was at the back with our children in the middle,” he said. “As soon as we got off the train, people started crying. The pressure from behind was unbearable. Everyone was climbing over each other, desperate to move.”
He said he pleaded with the Government Railway Police (GRP) and railways officials. “I yelled at them many times. I even broke the railing of the stairs trying to pull people out, but it was of no use. My wife was crushed in the crowd, and so was my leg.”
In the chaos, he saw his daughter just ahead. “I was trying to save her. I saw my wife in front struggling to escape,” he recollected. He then spotted a soldier lying on the ground next to a young girl and shouted for help. “He tried, but he got injured himself. He kept telling me to move, to get down. Somehow, I managed to get out, but my wife couldn’t.”
Empty platform, eerie silence
Pankaj Giri walked out of the LNJP mortuary a little after 1.30 am. His family had been torn apart in the stampede—five were in the hospital, one in the morgue. His cousin called him at 9.30 pm, he said. “I was returning from work. He said there had been an accident, there is no ambulance, no help and asked if I could come as soon as possible,” Giri said.
When he reached the station all he saw was emptiness. “The crowd had vanished, the platform was eerily silent. At the hospital, my relatives and I were stopped at the entrance. The police wouldn’t let us in,” he said. “The administration was clearly trying to hide things,” he alleged.
Five members of his family—his uncle, aunt and their children—were hospitalised. “The injuries of two of the children weren’t severe, so we didn’t admit them.” His uncle had a fractured leg and was undergoing a CT scan. His aunt Susheela Devi died.
Pankaj had to fight his way to get into the hospital and later, the mortuary. “The police wouldn’t let us in. We argued, we pleaded. There were five or six of us, all desperate for answers,” he said. Adding, “Right now, we have just come to collect the body.”
Meanwhile, a two-member committee of Narsingh Deo (PCCM, Northern Railway) and Pankaj Gangwar (PCSC, Northern Railway), has been formed to investigate the incident. A High Administrative Grade (HAG) inquiry has also begun with orders to secure all video footage from New Delhi railway station.
(Edited by Sudha V.)
Also Read: NDLS stampede: 11 women among 18 killed, half of the victims were residents of Bihar
Reel Minister, Mr. Ashwini Vaishnav, must resign at the earliest. He has been an absolute failure as far as the Ministry of Railways is concerned.
No Rail Minister in India has presided over so many accidents and so many deaths. Mr. Ashwini Vaishnav should be in Guiness Book of Records.