Independent local media: ‘A hundred victims’
Suspended ritual bathroom and a situation still tense in India in Prayagraj, on the site of the mega Hindu pilgrimage Maha Khamamb Mela where, according to what some local media independent of the death of the deaths for the night crowd could be much higher than the fifteen already mentioned, touching almost A hundred. Chaos broke out shortly before dawn, when the crowd of thousands of devotees who moved to reach the point of the confluence of the two sacred rivers Ganges and Yamuna overwhelmed the police barricades, ending up trampling on the pilgrims who slept or rest at Earth. Among the wounded a group of about thirty women who awaited the dawn to approach the point of immersion.
The crowd that arrived in the last hours at the Maha Khumba Mela website was more numerous than usual because the day, called Mauni Amavasya is considered particularly propitious for the ritual bath: the program also involved the immersion of a few hundred thousands of “Sadhu”, The Hindu asceties that stand in Praiagraj for the entire duration of the pilgrimage, 45 days in an area of the field tented reserved for them.
The authorities have let various hours pass before officially admitting that the accident caused at least a dozen deaths, and the Indian media who are following development live do not give figures.
The 2025 edition of the pilgrimage, which is held every 12 years, is particularly relevant: the devotees believe that the ritual bath purifies from sins and free forever from the “Moksha”, the cycle of rebirths, saving from the continuous reincarnation.
The authorities have provided that in the 45 days of the event, which will continue until February 26, 400 million people will arrive on the site.
