Patna stampede: Bihar govt vows to punish people responsible for 'lapses'

The Bihar government on Sunday vowed to punish those responsible for "lapses" that led to the stampede at the historic Gandhi Maidan in Patna on October 3, leaving 33 people dead and 29 injured.

The government has instituted an inquiry into the tragedy and it is being conducted by Home Secretary Amir Subhani and Additional Director General of Police, Headquarters, Gupteshwar Pandey.

"The state government is not going to spare anyone responsible for 'lapses' that led to the stampede outside the Gandhi Maidan," Water Resources Department Minister Vijay Chaudhary told PTI.

He said that the probe team would jointly hold a public inquiry at the district collectorate on October 7 to hear accounts of eyewitnesses and other people willing to depose.

The state government would also publish advertisements in newspapers appealing to the people to share information about the incident, he said. On the lack of lighting arrangement at the venue on the day of the Dusshera festivity, Chaudhary said that the state government was aware of the matter, but would await the probe report to act.

He said that the injured were getting "proper treatment" in the PatnaMedicalCollege and Hospital. PMCH Superintendent Dr Lekhindra Prasad said that seven of the injured had been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the facility.

Pandey said that the probe team had taken statements of the injured persons at the PMCH, magistrates and police officers deputed on duty for the Dusshera festival at Gandhi Maidan. Pandey said that the probe would be completed within a week and a report would be submitted to the state government. Meanwhile, two more victims have been identified as

Mangari Devi, 55, a native of Anishabad locality in the state capital, and Ranjana Gupta, 33, from Salim Ahra locality of Patna, Dr Arun Kumar, who is the OSD to the PMCH principal in-charge Khurshid Alam, said.

All the 33 bodies had been identified and handed over to the district administration, he said. The Bharatiya Janata Party unit in Bihar on Sunday submitted a memorandum to the state Governor D Y Patil for forwarding to the President.

In the memorandum, the party charged the state government with dereliction of duty and failure to learn lessons from past incidents, like the Adalatghat tragedy during Chhath festival two years ago that left 18 people dead and the terror attack at the Gandhi Maidan last year which claimed eight lives.

"The state government has clearly failed to perform its duty and its callousness to handle law and order situation has been thoroughly exposed after the stampede incident," state BJP president Mangal Pandey, who led a march of party colleagues and workers to submit the memorandum to the governor, said.

The Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, a constituent of the National Democratic Alliance, condoled the death of 33 people in the stampede and took out a march, led by state unit president Arun Kumar, from the Income Tax roundabout to the Gandhi Maidan to express their solidarity with the victims and their families.

The Left parties have blamed the state government, the district administration and the police for their 'lapses' and demanded an impartial probe and stringent action against  those officials responsible for it, Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sarvodaya Sharma said in a statement after a meeting of state leaders of the Left parties.

Warning the state government against hushing up the probe into the incident, the CPI-M leader said that if that happened, the Left parties would launch an agitation to pressure the government to carry out a thorough probe and punish the guilty officials.