Chorbagan was not an accident. Festival crowds need a safety plan before the gates open

The people who died outside the Chorbagan Sarbojanin pandal in north Kolkata on Saturday evening had come to look at a goddess. At least 19 of them, 13 women and a child among them according to a source at the medical college, were crushed when the crowd waiting in the rain surged forward. Twenty-five more were injured.

Within hours the familiar machinery started up. Condolences, ex gratia, a police inquiry, a forensic team, CCTV footage under review. Several of the city’s biggest pujas were told to shut their gates for the night. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari cancelled all government events linked to the festival.

All of that is proper. None of it would have saved a life on Saturday.

A pattern, not a freak

What residents describe at Chorbagan is depressingly ordinary. Too few police, posted mostly near the VIP entrance. Announcements about entry and exit that left visitors confused at peak hour. A gate structure reported to have given way. An announcement by the organisers that, the Chief Minister says, set off the rush; whistles by private guards that, families told him, did the same.

India has been here many times. Last year alone, by one count, at least seven stampedes killed people: six at Tirupati in January, at least 30 at the Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj, at least 18 at New Delhi railway station, six at a temple festival in Goa, 11 outside Bengaluru’s Chinnaswamy Stadium, 41 at a political rally in Karur, nine at a temple in Srikakulam. Each was followed by an inquiry. Few were followed by a change anyone could see.

The fair objection

Durga Puja is not a stadium event with tickets. Kolkata has nearly 3,500 pujas this year, most run by neighbourhood committees with volunteers and modest budgets. Crowds move freely from pandal to pandal through the night, and no one can know in advance which theme will go viral. Police cannot stand at every gate.

That is true, and it is exactly why the burden cannot rest on luck. The crowds are predictable even if each visitor is not. The big pandals, the ones that draw lakhs, are known by name before the festival starts. They are where planning has to be concentrated.

What should change

First, any puja, rally or religious event expected to draw large crowds should need a written crowd plan approved by the police before permission is granted, and that plan should be public: the site’s safe capacity, the entry and exit routes, the number of marshals, where the ambulances will stand. The National Disaster Management Authority’s guidance already covers most of this, from capacity planning to outward-opening exits and zig-zag barriers. It is advice. It should be a condition.

Second, someone should count. A pandal that can safely hold a few thousand people at a time should stop admitting more when that number is reached, and the queue outside should be managed in held sections, not as a single mass pressing on a gate.

Third, announcements and signals should be planned and rehearsed. A sudden public announcement or a whistle in a packed street is not a neutral act; it moves people. Organisers and private guards should be trained in what not to do.

Fourth, the police deployment should follow the crowd, not the dignitaries. A VIP gate that is well staffed while the public gate is not is a choice.

Finally, accountability should be named in advance, not discovered afterwards. Every approved plan should carry the name of the official and the organiser responsible for it.

Kolkata’s pujas are among the great public festivals of the world. They deserve to be remembered for their art, not for the names of the dead. The festival has days still to run, and the gates will open again. They should open on a plan.

The reporting behind this view

• 19people killed at the Chorbagan pandal, Kolkata, on 17 October 2026
• 41killed at a political rally in Karur, Tamil Nadu, on 27 September 2025
• 30+killed at the Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj on 29 January 2025