More than two days after a stampede killed 258 persons at the Kalubai temple at Wai in Maharashtra, residents of the tiny Mandhardevi village are still unable to figure out why they were attacked and their businesses destroyed in the aftermath.
As relatives began pulling out the dead and wounded from the mass of entangled limbs, a cry went out for revenge and a free-for-all soon ensued. “We had already lined up the dead and were providing first aid to the injured at the platform behind the temple when the mob went berserk,” recollects Sudhir Kshirsagar one of the hereditary priests of the temple.
The numerous shops selling coconuts and other pooja paraphernalia adjacent to the temple were the first to be set on fire on Tuesday afternoon. As the small force of male and female police personnel along with the temple priests tried to stop the mob they were set upon and beaten up by the pilgrims. “We had to lock ourselves inside the office of the temple trust where we had collected the dead bodies,” says police constable Baban Jagtap.
The crowd soon chased away the shopkeepers and began to loot the merchandise worth lakhs of rupees before setting fire to the shops on the temple premises. “All my merchandise worth Rs 1.5 lakh was burned to cinders,” says local resident Ramdas Mandre pointing to broken television sets and a heap of still-smouldering CDs. Much damage was also caused by exploding cylinders from the host of restaurants nearby.
Mandre and scores of others had only opened their business on Sunday after a three-month break when the temple trust shifted their shops 20 feet behind to expand the approach road to the shrine. “With all the negative publicity no one will come this year,” he worries.
The pilgrimage season at the Kaleshwari or Kalubai temple had begun only on Sunday with the festivities peaking on Tuesday before settling down for a busy season for the next several weeks.
Rather than blame the local administration, villagers attribute their misfortune to fate. “A few revelers carrying masks of Kalubai tried to enter from the exit gates causing a bottleneck,” says Kshirsagar, the temple priest. Also near the exit were twin oil lamps hewed from rock where pilgrims poured bottles of oil to fulfil their vows.
Even as a lot of oil spilled on the ground, a few pilgrims broke coconuts where they stood causing the rock floor to turn
slippery. The pilgrims caught in the bottleneck were soon caught in a stampede spread over just a small 5000 square feet area. A few of them who were high on liquor continued to dance into a frenzy making rescue difficult, says Kshirsagar.
Pilgrims bring goats and chicken for slaughter at an enclosure outside the temple. The meat is cooked on bonfires at the sprawling grounds outside the temple and consumed along with liquor. More than 3000 goats are sacrificed on festival days here.
A few of the residents of the 1100-strong Mandhardevi village say they would offer penances to appease the deity. As proof of divine anger they point out to a 14-feet idol of Hanuman carved in stone. Unlike other similar idols in Hindu temples, the feet of this idol and the supporting rock on which agarbattis are lit have sunk to the ground.
“It was visible till Monday, but the idol sank sometime during the stampede,” say all the villagers in unison.
The villagers are now demanding that the authorities pave the kachcha road approaching the temple with a metal top.
With prominent dignitaries lining up for a visit, a clean-up operation is on. Health workers sprayed more than 500 kg of disinfectant and a thousand litres of phenol to prevent contamination. Though human bodies were quickly removed, half-burnt meat of animals remained at abandoned bonfires in some places.
According to villagers a large number of the dead were quickly taken away by relatives in buses. Police reinforcements which came later pulled out 258 bodies from the site, villagers say. Most of the victims were women and girls.
The authorities have decided not to open the temple till further notice.
