In Goa, a stampede and screams earlier than dawn

On Might 2, Sonia Nandadurgi’s son, Sagar Shivkumar Nandadurgi, 31, a devotee of Goddess Lairai, boarded a bus with six associates from Piligao village to Shirgao village, 13 kilometres away. Right here, in north Goa’s Bicholim taluka, is the Shree Lairai Devi temple, the place yearly in April or Might, individuals flock for rituals that culminate within the lighting of a bonfire from which coals are raked and devotees referred to as dhonds stroll over.

Waving to his mom and uncles, he promised to be residence the subsequent morning after strolling on agnidivya (embers). The subsequent morning, at 6 a.m., Sagar’s three uncles learnt from their neighbours that he and 5 others had died in a stampede on the temple.

Sagar’s funeral rites had been carried out on Might 3. Since then, politicians and State administration officers have been streaming into the two-room home, providing their condolences. On Might 4, the Governor of Goa, P.S. Sreedharan Pillai, visited the household. Sagar’s uncle and neighbour, Sainath Kavlekar, 45, says till Might 9, the household had not acquired the postmortem report.

A devotee’s mom weeps

Sonia Nandadurgi, whose son Sagar Shivkumar Nandadurgi died within the stampede on the temple. 
| Photograph Credit score:
Emmanual Yogini

Sixty-year-old Sonia’s house is surrounded by jackfruit, cashew, coconut, and mango timber. There’s a tulsi planted in a mound of purple earth on the entrance. The home was once kuccha; Sagar had lately plastered it with cement, she says.

Relations who stay within the space say he needed to color the home and likewise exchange the tin-sheet roof with a pucca one. At residence, surrounding an anachronistic TV set on a wood desk are the various awards that Sagar had gained in class, school, and at work for his efficiency. His spectacles, workplace bag, and medals all grasp from partitions and doorways. Sagar had labored for Tirumala Financial institution’s mortgage restoration division, the steady job serving to him and his mom construct a greater monetary life.

Sonia had misplaced her husband when Sagar was only a toddler. She had introduced Sagar up by doing odd jobs over time. She refuses to eat or drink water. “Why did you (the Goddess) take my son, my solely son, my complete life,” she asks in Konkani, sobbing. “What’s the objective of my life with out him?”

Overcrowding and a stampede

On the intervening evening of Might 2 and three, an estimated one lakh individuals or extra — as per temple authorities and the administration — had gathered between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. to supply prayers and stroll on embers on the temple. There is just one concrete, steep street going in the direction of the temple, broad sufficient just for a lorry to cross.

Rupesh Rajput, 35, a dhond from Bicholim city, recounts the chaotic scenes that unfolded that day. “I suffered a minor harm. I’m fortunate to be alive,” he says. “At about 2 (within the morning) what I noticed was distressing. A gaggle of dhonds had been taking part in with the beth (canes dhonds carry, additionally used within the rituals inside the temple). They pushed individuals in entrance of them. There was a rope that divided the dhonds from the common devotees. Inside minutes, no less than seven queues had been fashioned, and the dividing rope was gone,” he says. That precipitated the chaos that led to the stampede, he says.

Sagar was rushed to the group well being centre in Bicholim, the place he was declared ‘introduced useless’, says Kavlekar. “His associates informed us that he was pushed by different dhonds and fell on the pavement. He was crushed by the gang. He was such a mild and type man,” he says.

Additionally learn | Goa stampede: Truth-finding committee begins probe into incident; Governor meets victims’ kin

Quickly after the incident, 74 individuals had been admitted within the Goa Medical Faculty and Hospital (GMCH) in Bambolim, the Asilo Hospital in Mapusa, and in group well being centres at Sankhali and Bicholim. 9 injured individuals stay admitted in GMCH, of which 4 are on ventilator help.

Dr. Rajesh T. Patil, the medical superintendent at GMCH, says many suffered extreme a number of fractures within the ribs. “Two sufferers have extreme head accidents with cerebral hypoxia (when the mind is starved of oxygen). This can be a critical complication that happens after a chest harm,” he says. GMCH has been conducting psychological well being classes for households and survivors, he provides.

On Might 3, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant introduced the switch of 5 senior officers within the administration. He additionally introduced an ex-gratia compensation of ₹10 lakh to every household of the deceased and ₹1 lakh every to those that had suffered critical accidents. Sainath says nobody from the administration has reached out to them in regards to the compensation.

The street to the temple

Through the temple competition, there’s a build-up of stalls promoting the whole lot from flowers to toys, at Wadacha Wada hamlet in Shirgao, the place the stampede occurred, a couple of kilometre from the temple. Now, there are only a few stalls promoting puja necessities, however the odor of jasmine lingers within the air.

A fabric service provider says his stall was vandalised by the gang, however he’s grateful to have survived the stampede. “I used to be holding on to a bamboo pole that I had put as much as make the stall. Very quickly, all of the 4 bamboo helps had been introduced on the bottom. The garments on the market had been run over,” he says, refusing to be named. He provides that there was no police presence on the spot.

Regardless of the stampede the earlier evening, devotees proceed to throng the temple the next days, however temple authorities have turned off the music. The accident spot is comparatively quiet. Footwear, heaps of beths, jasmine, purses, wallets, and items of torn garments remained on the edges of the road.

Residents within the hilly space, whose porches had been taken over by the gang, say they had been terrified to get up to sounds of ambulances and screaming. Ravina Madgaonkar (48), who lives along with her husband and two youngsters, says that yearly, individuals come to their porch to attend or simply lie all the way down to relaxation. This 12 months there have been way more individuals, and the corners of their compound partitions are damaged.

“My 22-year-old son has been a dhond for the previous seven years. He managed to return residence, however he had a troublesome time stepping into the home as individuals had been sitting proper exterior our closed doorways,” says Madgaonkar.

The grief of a husband and uncle

Aditya Ankush Kauthankar (16) had accompanied his aunt Tanuja Shyamsundar Kirtankar (51) and his cousin Ritika (15), all of them dhonds. Seeing his aunt and cousin unable to rise up, he rushed to assist them, however was himself crushed within the chaos, says Ritika, who survived. He and his aunt had been introduced useless to the Mapusa district hospital.

“It was sheer luck that somebody dragged Ritika out and put her into an ambulance,” says her father, Shyamsundar Kauthankar (60), who misplaced his spouse. Ritika suffered accidents in her leg and wears a brief brace. The household lives lower than 10 kilometres from right here, and Shyamsundar is a development employee.

“I’m nervous about how I’ll take her to highschool to put in writing her class 9 paper. The college has not agreed to offer her any reduction,” says Shyamsundar. He was knowledgeable in regards to the incident by his older daughter, who was ready close to the homkhand, the pile of wooden that was to be torched.

Ritika all the time imitated her mom, who had been a dhond since she was a baby, says Shyamsundar, who has all the time feared crowds. “If Aditya and Tanuja had been taken in an ambulance as a substitute of a police van, they might have survived. How did the State authorities enable stalls on each side of such a slender street, that too on a slope? Till final 12 months, the police used to launch dhonds and devotees in batches of 15 to 25 at a time. This 12 months, there was no administration,” he says.

Aditya’s mom is a home assist and father a taxi driver. Aditya had simply handed his class 10 board examinations, and his sister is at school 8. The household is in shock and can’t converse. “He was so excited to check at school 11 that he had stored his newly stitched uniform, socks and footwear prepared for the brand new time period,” says Shyamsundar.

Arun Desai, assistant sub-inspector, Bicholim police station, says the gang has solely grown annually, and it has grow to be a mammoth process for the police to deal with. “Devotees from Goa and neighbouring Maharashtra and Karnataka began coming from early within the morning on Might 2. By the evening, the gang was an excessive amount of for the police to deal with.”

Religion and devotion

The Lairai Devi annual jatra (pilgrimage), often known as the Shirgao jatra is centuries previous, says Dinanath Gaonkar (69), president and priest of the temple committee.

On the 2,700-square-metre premises, devotees submit their needs to Lairai, who’s certainly one of eight siblings who made Goa their residence, as per legend. Lairai’s sister Mirai was adopted by the Portuguese, who christened her Milagres (milagre is Portuguese for miracle). Oil for the temple competition comes from the church of that title in Mapusa, says Gaonkar.

“Think about all of the dhonds should full the fireplace stroll between 2 and 6 within the morning,” he says. The Mahajans (hereditary male descendants of the temple’s founders) consider that the Goddess Lairai then walks to the chavata, an area about 200 metres from the homkund, the place she rests.

After this ritual, at 3.30 p.m., prasadam, consisting of patkali (ixora) and kodu (bottle gourd) flowers, is served. “Lairai Devi is our protector of water and forest assets, which we as soon as had in abundance,” says Gaonkar.

Individuals amassing ashes from the embers on which the dhonds stroll exterior the Lairai Devi temple in Shirgao, Goa.
| Photograph Credit score:
Emmanual Yogini

The world has seen heavy mining of iron ore, he provides. “Since 2008, we now have filed a number of petitions in numerous courts to limit mining operations. At the moment 270 hectares of land is with the mining firms,” he says, including that the State authorities has been onerous on the temple due to this opposition.

State authorities say that in a gathering held on April 30, with the police and district administration, the temple committee was instructed to put in CCTV cameras and powerful barricades to segregate devotees from common guests, so queues can be higher regulated. A authorities official says this was a personal occasion, making the organisers accountable.

Gaonkar counters that the State administration had did not do its job. “Earlier than the competition, the federal government had assured us of enough police employees and preparations akin to barricades, however on the day of the competition, the police was not even current,” he says. Permission for stalls exterior the temple premises got by the federal government, he claims. There may be mounting stress on the temple committee at hand over the temple and the competition, says Gaonkar. “In March the State authorities, with out consulting with us, declared Lairai jatra a State competition. The temple committee refused to just accept it.”

The temple comes below Goa’s Devasthan Regulation, 1933 — informally referred to as the Mahajani Act — which has ruled Hindu temples (devasthans) within the State since Portuguese rule. As much as 66.08% of Goa’s inhabitants is Hindu, as per the final census. “There are round 500 Mahajans who’re from Kshatriya Bhandari and Brahmin communities. We can’t hand over centuries of custom to the federal government, who has no thought how the temple features.”

After the tragedy, the State authorities constituted a fact-finding committee headed by State Income Secretary Sandeep Jacques. The findings had been to be revealed on Might 9, however they’re now below the evaluation of the Chief Minister.