Stampede Disasters Can Be Prevented, Provided We Value Human Life

On July 27, thousands of people gathered at the Mansa Devi Temple in Haridwar with hope and devotion, but within minutes, their faith was met with fear. A rumour broke out about a live electricity wire falling on the stairs. This created a sense of fear among the devotees and triggered a deadly stampede that killed nine people and injured many. Early reports indicated that the number of devotees that day exceeded 5,000. They were climbing a stairway that’s crowded on ordinary days, flanked by makeshift stalls, tarpaulin-covered shops, and vendors. Additionally, there was no signage to guide movement, no emergency exits, and no alternate route to divert the crowd. But till today, nothing has come out in the public domain as to how such tragedies can be prevented in the future.

Fruin’s Crowd Safety Model shows that once a crowd reaches about five people per square metre, things start getting risky, and at seven, it can quickly become life-threatening. The safe density for walking downstairs and upstairs is defined to be 3.5 and 3.2 persons per square metre, respectively. It’s not just a matter of discomfort; it’s a tipping point where people lose control over their movement. These numbers aren’t just statistics; they're warnings that effective crowd management can’t be treated as an afterthought. So, why weren’t the authorities concerned enforcing and following this protocol? Officials confirmed the scale of the loss, but words rarely capture what it feels like to lose someone in a place meant to offer peace.

What was even more disheartening was the statement of the District Magistrate―who was more concerned about dismissing the rumour of a wire falling on the crowd rather than acknowledging the precious loss of human lives. He seemed to focus more on insisting that none of the casualties resulted from electrocution and cleverly tried to steer the narrative away from overcrowding, poor planning, and lack of infrastructure, which were the actual causes of the stampede.

This wasn’t a one-off event. It follows a pattern that’s both tragic and, by now, depressingly familiar. In July 2024 last year, 121 people died in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, after over 2.5 lakh devotees gathered for a religious event that had official clearance for just 80,000. A few months later, in January 2025, six people died at the Tirumala Temple in Andhra Pradesh’s Tirupati, and 30 people lost their lives and more than 60 were injured during the Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj. In February 2025, 18 people were killed in a stampede at the New Delhi Railway Station after confusion about train timings and platform announcements led to panic. Then again, in May 2025, six people died and more than 100 people were left injured as chaos erupted during an annual festival of Sri Lairai Devi Temple in Shirgao village, Goa.

Not to forget the heartbreaking incident in Karnataka’s Bengaluru, in June 2025, where a celebration of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s (RCB) victory in the Indian Premier League (IPL) turned tragic, claiming 11 lives and injuring more than 33 cricket fans. We may run out of words, but not examples; there are countless such incidents that reveal the disregard for human life. These aren't different stories. They are the same story unfolding in different places. Whether it’s a temple, a train station, or a riverbank, the outcome remains heartbreakingly consistent. Too many people, not enough space. Too much faith, not enough planning. And always, the same belated response.

What makes the Mansa Devi tragedy even more unbearable is how little it would have taken to avoid it. Like real-time monitoring of the crowd, digital entry system, a basic loudspeaker announcement to dispel the rumour. Some devotees told the local media that they had pleaded with the guards to open an upper gate to reduce the pressure. Nothing happened. Injured pilgrims were carried by hand to ambulances parked hundreds of metres away. In the days since, the Uttarakhand government has issued the usual statements. A district-level inquiry has been ordered. New crowd management reviews are “underway”. If you’ve followed any of the previous tragedies, you’ve heard all of this before.

But the question that won’t go away is this: Can the government’s pretense after every loss serve any real purpose? Why are religious crowds, a known, predictable reality in India, still treated as logistical surprises? Why is safety for the faithful still left to luck and prayer? Perhaps part of the answer lies in who the victims are. These aren’t high-profile citizens or powerful constituencies. They are the nameless thousands, daily-wage workers, homemakers, pensioners, young children, whose devotion is deep, but whose political influence is nil.

Pilgrimage is a part of our national rhythm. People will continue to come, whether it’s Haridwar, Varanasi, Tirupati or Amritsar. That’s a certainty. Worship should never feel like walking a tightrope. It’s not enough to offer prayers for the dead. What India needs now is not another committee. It needs a cultural shift in how we approach public gatherings and pilgrimages. Holding zones must be constructed. One-way systems for movement must be enforced. Crowds must be monitored with the seriousness they deserve, not by a few overwhelmed volunteers, but through proper systems, trained personnel, and working infrastructure.

What we often see instead is a familiar pattern: a committee is set up, an inquiry is ordered, and promises are made. When it comes to crowd management, the only standard operating procedure (SOP) that ever seems to kick in is the one that follows every disaster: form a high-level committee of officials and launch an inquiry, to know the reason for the disaster. The findings of the report of the high-level committee in the case of the New Delhi Railway Station stampede saw the light of day when a question was answered in the Rajya Sabha on August 1.

“There was a big headload falling from one of the passengers and the pressure was passed on to the stairs of platforms 14/15, resulting in the tripping of passengers.” The high-level committee is expected to know that it is very common that the passengers carry headload and when passengers carry headload, there can always be a chance of the headload falling.

In the recent case of the management of the Shri Banke Bihari Ji Temple before the Supreme Court, the Allahabad High Court has said: “Human Life cannot be put at stake just because somebody has an objection. In our opinion, even the private Temples where devotees come for Darshan, safety of human life is required to be treated of utmost importance and the Government is bound to make necessary arrangements.”

We see a stark and sad contrast between celebrating the Hindu faith and the apparent neglect of the lives of its devotees. We are quick to build grand corridors and televise them for the spectacle and yet we miserably fail to provide the devotees with basic security infrastructure. We don’t even blink twice when it comes to spending crores of rupees on illuminating sites and shrines, but when it’s about investment in crowd safety protocols that can save lives, we don’t even consider it worth discussing. But at the heart of it all, maybe the real shift has to come from within―people need to start valuing their own lives, not just spiritually but practically.

Belief shouldn’t translate into blind acceptance of disorder and chaos. You can have faith and still ask questions. You can be devout and still demand safety. When people continue to die in stampedes year after year, it stops being a one-off tragedy and starts looking like something far worse: a deeply ingrained failure we’ve learned to overlook and normalise.

(The author is advocate, Supreme Court of India, and former member of the National Human Rights Commission)

(Views expressed are personal)