Eighteen days have passed since a tragedy during one of Kolkata’s most endearing festivals, Durga Puja, slipped from the front pages of leading dailies into the relentless churn of the news cycle.
Every year, Bengalis wait an entire year for Durga Puja-the UNESCO-recognised, fun-filled, vibrant celebration that transforms Kolkata into a living canvas of art and pageantry. But this year, the joy of Saptami was shattered in minutes, leaving an indelible scar on the city’s history of Sarbojanin Durga Puja (Durga Puja for all), a tradition dating back to 1926.
The exit gate of the Chorbagan pandal, where the stampede which claimed 19 lives and left 25 others injured took place, still remains strewn with torn clothes, shoes, bags, and bottles.
Survivors of the October 17 stampede and residents of the Chorbagan area recall cries of the injured and the unsettling silence of the dead. People TNIE spoke to pointed to a series of factors, including a lack of precautionary measures, as the cause of the tragedy.
It was raining...
When the stampede unfolded, Rahul Biswas, 29, from Howrah’s Liluah, was inside the pandal, barely 30 metres from the exit gate, with his girlfriend, Tamali. He recalled seeing people gathered near the exit, reluctant to step out into the heavy rain. This, he said, left the exit choked, even as visitors kept filing into the pandal.
“I somehow managed to jostle my way out with my girlfriend," he said. Soon after the stampede occurred.
"The moment we turned back, we saw people piled on top of one another. A woman was screaming that her daughter was trapped beneath them," he said. Tamali sustained wrist injuries in the melee.
Baishali Ghosh, 25, from Bhadreswar, was still away from the exit with her four friends when the stampede started.
“Volunteers allowed people to enter even though the exit was blocked. They should have closed the entry gate first, but they didn't," she said.
“I felt like my chest would explode. My lungs felt heavier, and I couldn’t breathe. I thought I wouldn’t survive that night," she recalled.
From her second-floor balcony, Sushoma Saha, 75, who lives directly opposite the exit gate, witnessed the stampede.
“I was watching TV when I heard loud cries. I saw people running helter-skelter. Right after that, I saw bodies being brought out of the pandal. I felt uneasy watching death before my eyes. I was unable to sleep the entire night.”
The announcement to blame?
Soumalya Pal, 21, from Howrah’s Sakrai, couldn't enter with his two friends. They were standing outside the pandal when the rope separating the crowd at the entrance was dropped, and a surge of people rushed inside.
Videos circulating on social media and CCTV footage show the situation spiralling out of control after an announcement over the microphone urged people to evacuate immediately because the pandal was caving in.
Eyewitnesses said the announcement that the pandal could collapse at any moment triggered panic and led to the stampede.
Soumalya and his friends started to move out of the place immediately. At that moment, he spotted an elderly couple emerging from the exit gate. They looked battered and bruised. He said, "We offered them water. At the same time, we spotted three people carrying a person who was unconscious."
Reflecting on the announcement, he said it “was completely wrong, and that is where the problem started", though he added that he felt the announcement was made with the intention of preventing more people from entering the pandal.
Police arrested two men who were behind the announcement on Friday for allegedly triggering panic.
‘Not a single volunteer, police, or doctor in sight’
Outside the exit gate, Rahul Biswas recalled seeing only one traffic police officer, who frantically made phone calls.
“There was no help, no rescue force available. A couple of bodies had already been pulled out in front of me. I remember seeing a woman’s body. For around 15 minutes, I did not see any official rescue work. Volunteers arrived much later,” he said.
Rahul said there appeared to be no plan for a swift emergency response. He also flagged the absence of volunteers at the exit gate.
He estimated that the volunteers inside the pandal were barely 15 or 16 years old. “Ei baccha civic volunteers-gulo ki kore erom bhir samlaabe?” (How can these children manage such a huge crowd?) he asked.
Baishali Ghosh echoed his concerns, saying the 16-and 17-year-old volunteers appeared untrained and unable to respond to the emergency. “It’s not their fault, but that of the pandal administration,” she said.
Sushoma Saha also said that "all the Borobabus (senior officers) came much later.”
A ‘mousetrap’ with no way out
The pandal followed a spiral layout, with visitors led up sloping ramps to an elevated, first-floor-like structure before being directed back to ground level towards the exit. Enclosed by steel grills, it allegedly had no emergency exit, leaving visitors with limited escape options when the crowd surged. “It almost felt like a mousetrap where none of us could escape,” Rahul said.
The stampede unfolded between 7.15 and 7.20 pm. However, the question of emergency egress remains contested.
On October 21, the West Bengal government constituted a six-member special investigation team (SIT) to probe the incident. The following day, the team, headed by retired judge Justice Anindita Roy Saraswati, inspected the pandal for the first time, accompanied by state officials and a representative of the National Disaster Response Force.
On TNIE's question about the alleged absence of an emergency exit, Justice Saraswati said, “There is an emergency exit inside the pandal. However, police officers informed me that it was locked during the stampede. We will look into the reason why it was shut.”
New committee management under fire
Sushoma, whose family has been associated with the 91-year-old puja since its inception, disagreed with the popular narrative of narrow lanes and unusually large crowds this year leading to the stampede.
Sushoma’s son, Partho, said the stalls lined up in front of the pandal were the main reason ambulances couldn't enter. "How could the police overlook something so basic?" he questioned. "Why were these stalls approved? We have suffered a lot in these three months because of them”, he added.
Jayanta Banerjee, who headed the committee for nearly 40 years and relied on neighbourhood volunteers to manage crowds, resigned before this year’s puja.
Eyewitnesses also alleged that soon after the stampede, police swiftly removed flex banners bearing the new organisers’ names–Jorasanko BJP MLA Bijoy Ojha, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari’s nephew, Debdeep Adhikari, as chief patron, and BJP north Kolkata district president Tamoghna Ghosh.
At the inauguration on October 12, Adhikari had hailed it as a “Sanatani puja”.
Baishali also questioned the non-availability of medical assistance. She said no doctor was present in the first-aid room when she found an injured girl lying there. “A lady was asking me to rub her hands, but her hands felt abnormally cold. The doctor arrived much later to check her pulse,” she said. She added that the narrow street prevented an ambulance from entering, and saw a tempo van on the main road instead.
Nitesh and his 8-10 friends, residents of the Chorbagan area, said, “We lifted the injured and the dead till Parbati Ghosh Lane. From there, we carried them till the Central Avenue petrol pump and then transported them through app-cabs, police vans, and ambulances.”
While nine arrests have been made so far, BJP heavyweights associated with the committee haven’t yet faced any interrogation. Pointing to the lapses, Partho said, “The CM is assuring action against the culprits. He should first comment on his mode of action against his own party members. The committee itself didn’t know the artist’s final vision of the pandal, the lighting and everything associated with it.”
What lies ahead?
The tragedy has left the neighbourhood grappling not only with grief but also with a lingering sense of dread. Sushoma Saha says the memory of that night still haunts her. Her granddaughter no longer lets her open the balcony door.
A senior state police officer said that at that time the CRPF and other central forces had been withdrawn from West Bengal for protest duty in Delhi, while state and Kolkata Police were kept on standby.
For the families of the 19 people who died, the festival will forever be marked by loss. For Rahuls and Baishalis, the near fear of death and the harrowing witness of people’s cries will continue to haunt them.