The West Bengal government has handed a ₹25 lakh compensation cheque to the family of a mother and her son who died in the Chorbagan stampede in Kolkata, as Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari visited their home in Madhabdihi, Bardhaman, on Tuesday.
The visit took place while the last rites of eighth-standard student Sandeep Bej and his mother, Tagar Bej, were being conducted. According to the report by Sangbad Pratidin, the chief minister sat with the family until the funeral was completed and offered condolences to the relatives.
The mother and son had travelled from Madhabdihi to Kolkata to visit the Chorbagan Sarbojanin puja pandal during the festive period. They were among 19 people reported to have died after a gate at the venue broke amid rain and heavy crowd pressure on Saturday evening, during the first Saptami celebrations.
The incident has cast a shadow over Kolkata’s major festive gatherings, attracting visitors from the city as well as districts across Bengal. The identification of the victims reportedly showed that several of those killed were residents of districts outside Kolkata, highlighting the extent to which large puja venues function as regional public-event destinations during the festival season.
Adhikari told the family that the state would stand by them and said a commission of inquiry headed by a High Court judge would be formed. He said the investigation would begin and be completed quickly, according to the report. The visit to the Bej family was described as the beginning of his tour of the victims’ homes in different districts.
Local BJP representatives, including the area legislator and the district party president, accompanied the chief minister during the visit. The report said members of the Bej family broke down while speaking with him and that he assured them of continued support from the state administration.
The compensation announcement comes as questions remain about crowd control, access points and emergency preparedness at high-footfall festival venues. The report said the stampede followed rain and pressure from a large crowd at the pandal gate, but it did not provide details of the venue’s approved capacity, police deployment, evacuation plan or the findings of any official inquiry.
During the visit, Adhikari also referred to earlier fatal incidents and criticised the previous government’s response to them. Those remarks were political in nature and separate from the compensation and inquiry announcements. The next formal step identified in the report is the constitution of the proposed inquiry commission under a High Court judge.
