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Tragedy strikes religious gathering

CUTTACK: Tragedy struck a religious gathering bustling with over some 50,000 revellers when crackers worth over Rs. 1lakh caught fire leaving a 12-year-old boy dead and at least 16 persons injured, 10 of them critically with over 80 per cent burns. Several persons sustained minor injuries in the stampede that followed.

The incident took place near a famous temple at Asureswar under Salipur police station of the district, 40 km from here, on Sunday midnight.

The injured were admitted to the burns unit of SCB medical college and hospital surgery department where Chandan Mallick died on Monday evening. He had suffered 100 per cent burns.

Doctors said the toll could mount as the ten persons were battling for their lives. The condition of others was also causing concern.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Naveen Patanaik, who arrived from New Delhi in the evening, announced an ex gratia of Rs. 1 lakh to the dead and Rs. 20,000 each to the injured from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund. Earlier, the district administration had announced that the entire treatment of the injured would be borne by the government and accordingly sanctioned Rs. 30,000 for purchase of medicines as per the requisitions made by the doctors.

The city Marwari Samaj and several other voluntary organisations of the city came forward to help the attendants of the injured persons by providing them food and other essentials.

District Collector Sujata Karthikeyan ordered an enquiry into the tragedy. “The Cuttack district rural Superintendent of Police A. N. Sinha is conducting an enquiry while another team led by the additional district magistrate has already left for the spot for an on-the-spot verification of the facts,” said a senior district official.

According to eyewitnesses, a sprinkler from a cracker fell on a pile of crackers that were stored for the annual firecracker display. Soon the fire spread to the nearby makeshift cracker shops that had been put up around the temple.

“Traditionally, devotees offer firecrackers to the presiding deity after fulfilment of their wishes on the occasion of Chaitra Purnima. Several unauthorised cracker shops come up in the locality on the occasion”, said Sarat Kar, former Orissa Speaker and a veteran Congress leader of the locality.

This is a practice followed in the locality since time immemorial but of late, the number of crackers and their types have undergone a sea change and the local administration has little control over them, Mr. Kar alleged. He alleged that the temple trustees, the police and the fire brigade failed to take precautionary measures.

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