NEW DELHI; Nineteen deaths at a Durga Puja pandal have shattered an assumption that generations of Kolkatans took for granted: that the city’s greatest annual celebration, despite its immense crowds, would not end in a catastrophe of this kind. For residents in their late sixties or early seventies who have spent their lives in the city, a fatal stampede at a Durga Puja pandal is without precedent in living memory.
The immediate circumstances point to a dangerous combination of narrow access, inadequate exits, heavy rain and failures of crowd management at Chorbagan. An announcement reportedly added to the confusion as people sought shelter. These are not hazards that organisers could not have anticipated. Rain is familiar to Kolkata; enormous crowds are intrinsic to its Puja celebrations. Planning must account for both.
The contrast with the 2015 Deshapriya Park episode is instructive. An enormous Durga idol drew an overwhelming crowd, leaving eleven people injured in a stampede-like incident. No lives were lost, but the warning was unmistakable: a crowd-pulling attraction can overwhelm the space and arrangements intended to contain it.
Eleven years later, Chorbagan has demonstrated the difference between a close call and a disaster. Seven people have been arrested, including the puja committee’s secretary and vice-president, along with personnel responsible for construction, crowd control and private security. The arrests are not proof of guilt, but neither should the investigation end with those immediately involved in operations. Who approved the arrangements? Who assessed the site’s capacity and the adequacy of its exits? Who exercised authority over safety decisions? Any influential person found to have contributed culpably to the disaster must face the same scrutiny as a subordinate.
The committee’s recent reorganisation and the reported involvement of politically connected figures make transparency especially important. Association alone establishes no culpability. But political connections must confer neither presumed guilt nor immunity. Investigators must follow the evidence through the entire chain of responsibility.
There is a further danger. Kolkata’s vast Puja celebrations depend on volunteers to manage queues, guide visitors and respond to emergencies. If volunteers become convenient scapegoats for instructions issued by those above them, others may be reluctant to serve. Yet pandals cannot function safely without them.
The answer is not blanket immunity, but proper training, clearly assigned responsibilities, authority to halt admissions when danger develops, and protection for those who act responsibly. Negligence must be distinguished from an honest operational mistake or obedience to an instruction. The administration, too, must answer for the effectiveness of its inspections and crowd-control arrangements. Safety cannot rest solely on assurances from organisers; it requires independent verification, enforceable capacity limits, workable evacuation plans and coordinated policing.
Durga Puja is an expression of Kolkata’s cultural identity, not merely a spectacle competing for visitors. Its grandeur carries a corresponding obligation to protect them. Nineteen people have died in a tragedy that the city’s collective experience had scarcely prepared it to imagine. Justice requires establishing how it happened. Public duty requires ensuring that it never happens again. - The Statesman/ANN
