Cuttack:
One person was killed and 20 others were injured, four of them critically, in a stampede in Odisha’s Cuttack district on Saturday.
A police officer said that the incident occurred due to the gathering of a large number of people on the Badamba-Gopinathpur T-bridge on the occasion of Makar Mela.
Badamba-Narsinghpur MLA and former minister Debi Prasad Mishra confirmed that a woman, identified as 45-year-old Anjana Swain, died in the incident, while four people with serious injuries were admitted to the SCB Medical College Hospital in Cuttack city. Got admitted.
Mishra said the other injured have been admitted to the Community Health Center (CHC) in Badamba.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik expressed grief over the incident and announced an ex-gratia of Rs five lakh each to the families of the deceased.
“The injured will get free treatment and I wish them a speedy recovery,” Patnaik said in a statement.
Athagarh sub-collector Hemant Kumar Swain said that the incident occurred due to a sudden increase in the number of devotees, including women and children, who came to visit Lord Singhnath in the afternoon at a fair organized on the occasion.
The district administration said the congregation was massive as people were paying obeisance at the temple after a gap of two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Deputy Collector said that a large number of devotees had visited the temple from Cuttack, Khordha, Puri, Angul, Dhenkanal, Boudh and Nayagarh districts.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and was auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)