The families of those killed in the Chorbagan stampede have received assurances of government support and a full investigation, with Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari visiting bereaved households in New Barrackpur and Baranagar on Wednesday.
The visits followed the deaths during the evening of Saptami, when people had gone to see festival idols at Chorbagan. Among those who died was Priya Samaddar, a resident of New Barrackpur in North 24 Parganas. The Chief Minister visited her home, spoke to her family members and paid tribute before her photograph.
The report by Sangbad Pratidin said Adhikari had earlier promised to visit the homes of every person who died in the incident. During his visit to New Barrackpur, he conveyed his condolences and assured the family that the state government would stand by them. Financial compensation from the state government was handed over to the family members of the deceased families visited by the Chief Minister.
The Chief Minister also visited the home of Dilip Ghosh and Dipali Ghosh, a couple from Baranagar who died in the Chorbagan incident. He spoke to their son, who has lost both parents. The report said the Chief Minister comforted him during the meeting.
Speaking while reviewing preparations for the Ganga immersion at Babughat, Adhikari described the Chorbagan incident as “unforgivable” and said it resulted from “two minutes of error”. The report did not provide further details about what caused the alleged lapse or identify the specific agency responsible for crowd management at the site.
The deaths have placed the focus on the systems used to manage large festival crowds in Kolkata and its surrounding areas. Such events bring together visitors, local residents, idol-viewing arrangements, traffic movement and emergency response operations in confined urban spaces. The available report, however, does not specify the size of the crowd, the number of injured people, the precise location of the incident or the crowd-control arrangements in place at the time.
Adhikari said a comprehensive investigation would be conducted and that a fact-finding team would establish the details of the incident. The report also said the Chief Justice of the High Court had indicated that the state government could constitute an inquiry commission headed by a retired judge, rather than a serving judge, if it chose to do so.
The promised inquiry is expected to establish how the incident unfolded, whether safety arrangements were adequate and which authorities were responsible for responding to the crowd emergency. No formal findings from the fact-finding process or inquiry commission had been released in the report. The next official step is the investigation and the collection of facts by the state-appointed team.
