A day after Suraj Pal Singh, known to his followers as Bhole Baba's satsang stampede claimed more than 120 lives, many new details are coming to the fore. The stampede at a religious congregation on Tuesday left 121 people dead and 28 injured. The Uttar Pradesh Police on Wednesday registered an FIR against the organisers of the congregation, accusing them of hiding evidence and flouting conditions with 2.5 lakh people gathering for the event in which only 80,000 were permitted.
However, this was not the first time when the godman was addressing such a huge congregation by flouting the rules. In 2022, he held a similar satsang in UP's Farrukhabad even as cases of Covid were on the rise. Owing to the pandamic, the district administration had only permitted 50 people to attend the event over 50,000 people reached the site to attend the programme. The large crowd led to the significant traffic snarls in the area.
Meanwhile, a plea was filed in the Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking appointment of a five-member expert committee under the supervision of a retired apex court judge to probe the Hathras stampede incident.
The congregation or 'satsang' conductor Jagat Guru Saakar Vishwahari's name does not figure in the list of accused in the FIR though his name is in the complaint. The FIR alleged that the organisers hid the actual number of devotees coming to the 'satsang' while seeking permission, did not cooperate in traffic management and hid evidence after the stampede, which broke out after people gathered there stopped to collect mud from the way the baba's vehicle was passing.
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