A Kolkata stampede at the Chorbagan Sarbojanin Durgotsav venue killed 19 people, including a child, and injured 25 others after a large crowd surged near the pandal on Saturday night, according to a report by Anandabazar. The incident has left the surrounding area under police cordon, with residents describing scenes of panic after heavy rain and crowd pressure intensified.
The affected area in Chorbagan was reported to be unusually quiet on Sunday morning. Several homes near the pandal had their windows closed, while barricades had been placed around the incident site and an area extending about 20 metres from it. Police personnel were also present, the report said.
Residents told Anandabazar that the locality had been drawing increasingly large crowds each day. Visitors were moving through narrow lanes in long queues to see the pandal. On Saturday night, a local resident said they saw people pushing and shouting after looking out from a window. Heavy rain began at around the same time, adding to the difficulty of managing the crowd.
According to an eyewitness cited in the report, several people who had been waiting in line tried to enter the pandal to escape the rain. The ensuing pushing reportedly caused some visitors to fall inside a circular section of the pandal, creating conditions in which people were trampled.
The report identified an elevated circular corridor inside the pandal as the location where the incident is believed to have occurred. Visitors were required to move through the corridor in a 360-degree route before exiting the venue. The exact sequence of events remains under investigation.
Local residents and some relatives of the victims have questioned whether there were enough police personnel and volunteers at the venue. They also raised concerns about the narrow entry and exit routes. The report said the police and fire services had inspected the arrangements and granted permission for the puja, despite the venue attracting large crowds every year.
The event has also raised questions about responsibility for crowd planning at major public festivals, particularly where temporary structures, narrow access lanes, rain and high visitor numbers overlap. Those questions remain subject to the investigation and have not been resolved by the accounts available in the report.
The puja committee is linked, according to Anandabazar, to Jorasanko BJP MLA Bijoy Ojha, Devdeep Adhikari, identified in the report as the nephew of Chief Minister Shuvendu Adhikari, and Tamoghna Ghosh, president of the BJP’s North Kolkata district unit. The report did not provide responses from the organisers or the authorities to the allegations raised by residents.
Police and other authorities have begun examining how the crowd movement deteriorated and why the incident occurred despite prior inspections. The affected section remains barricaded as the investigation continues.
