Stampede in Northern India Kills 16

By Katherine Weber, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, November 08, 2011

A stampede in India killed 16 Tuesday as thousands of Hindu pilgrims rushed to the Ganges River in Lucknow, India.

The pilgrims were partaking in their annual trek to the prayer ceremony on the Ganges River, a tradition apart of the Haridwar Festival in Uttarkhand, Northern India.

The festival honored the 100th birthday of Sri Ram Sharma, a sage and leader during Hinduism’s Golden Age. Sri Ram Sharma founded the All World Gayatri Parivar sect of Hinduism in Haridwar, which is considered a very sacred site for Hindus.

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Thousands of pilgrims crowd through the streets of Haridwar to reach the Ganges River, one of the most important elements of the Hindu religion. The river represents all sacred waters described in Hindu mythology.

Pilgrims immerse themselves in the river, offering prayers to their deceased ancestors.

Hindus believe the holy water will cleanse them of their sins and free them of the reincarnation cycle central to the Hindu religion.

Police reported finding 16 corpses and 50 injured bodies after the stampede. Women and children were among many of those stampeded.

Out of the 16 who died, 14 were women, said Harbeer Singh, the sub divisional magistrate of Haridwar, to CNN.

“More worshippers turned up than the place could accommodate and so the stampede occurred,” said D Santhel Pandiyan, a senior local official to the AFP news agency.

Government representative Amit Chandola told the Associated Press that many worshippers tripped and fell while rushing to the Ganges, and subsequent worshippers stampeded them.

India has a population of 1.2 billion, 83 percent of which are Hindu. The highly populated country is familiar with stampedes at religious festivals.

According to The Hindustan Times, nearly 1,000 devotees have lost their lives in religious festival stampedes in the past decade.