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More than 100 people have been killed and dozens injured in a stampede during a Hindu religious event in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where thousands of devotees gathered. Ashish Kumar, a district magistrate in the small town of Hathras, said most of the dead so far were women and children who appeared to have suffocated in the rush to leave the scene. “The death toll has been confirmed so far at 116,” said Chaitra V., a senior civil official in the Aligarh district, where Hathras is located. Local officials said the heat and overcrowding had triggered panic. Witnesses interviewed by local media said some of the victims fell in drains. The event was a large Hindu prayer meeting organized by a local guru named Bhole Baba, who has been leading such meetings for more than two decades. The crush occurred at the end of the meeting, which was held under a large tent. Hathras police officer Rajesh Singh said the event permit allowed 5,000 people to attend.But he said in a telephone interview that initial information from the scene indicated the crowd was much larger than that. He said more than 150 people had been taken to different hospitals. Umesh Kumar Tripathi, a doctor in the neighboring Etah district in western Uttar Pradesh, said the “death toll is likely to rise” as more victims are taken to hospitals. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking in India’s parliament after learning of the deaths, said “the government is working on a rescue operation.” “I assure you through the House that the victims will be helped in every way,” Mr Modi said. Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state with about 240 million people, said an investigation had been launched into the cause of the stampede. Unverified videos on social media showed a large number of bodies, mostly women, in the yard of what appeared to be a government hospital. Stampedes during religious pilgrimages are relatively common in India and are often caused by poor implementation of public safety measures. In 2013, more than 100 people died during Navratri processions in the north-central state of Madhya Pradesh, celebrating the Hindu goddess Durga, in one of the worst death tolls in recent years. In recent years, authorities have stepped up surveillance of large religious gatherings by deploying more police and using drones. “Both the state and federal governments have failed to come up with a sensible approach to crowd management,” said Manoj Kumar Jha, a member of India’s parliament. “As a country, we are good at attracting crowds but not so good at managing them.” “Every year, these incidents repeat themselves, but we learn nothing.”
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