On 2nd October, a 3,200-page charge sheet was filed by the authorities in connection with the 2nd July stampede that occurred at the Narayan Sakar Hari “Bhole Baba” congregation in Phulrai hamlet of Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras. The majority of the 121 fatalities were women and children. The police have charged 11 individuals, including two women sevadars (volunteers). However, Surajpal Singh, the self-styled ‘godman’ popularly known as Bhole Baba was not listed as an accused.
The primary organiser of the event, Dev Prakash Madhukar, Megh Singh, Mukesh Kumar, Manju Devi, Manju Yadav, Ram Ladhete, Upendra Singh, Sanju Kumar, Ram Prakash Shakya, Durvesh Kumar, and Dalveer Singh are the people against whom the charge sheet has been filed. These names were also mentioned in the First Information Report (FIR).
According to the charge sheet, “Mukhya Sewadar” Madhukar is the primary accused. The night following the event, he was named the prime culprit in the complaint filed at the Sikandra Rau police station in the Hathras district. Furthermore, he was charged with deceiving the authorities by obtaining authorization for an 80,000-person gathering of devotees when in fact over 2.5 lakh people attended the religious assembly in Phulrai village.
Ashok Kumar Singh, additional superintendent of police, announced that the court had received the charge sheet against the eleven defendants. The state government established a judicial panel and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) on 3rd July to look into the incident. Eleven people, including those in charge of obtaining the event’s permits, were charged by the SIT. Manju Devi and Manju Yadav, two of the accused, received bail after Allahabad High Court’s orders.
On 4th October, the next date of the case’s hearing, the accused will receive copies of the charge sheet that was submitted to the Hathras Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court. “Out of the 11 named and arrested in the case, two of the women accused, Manju Devi and Manju Yadav, have obtained interim bail from the Allahabad high court but only one is out of jail as, in the case of Manju Yadav, bail bonds are to be submitted,” stated AP Singh, a Delhi-based lawyer who is representing the accused.
He added, “The SIT probing the case has filed the charge sheet. A separate judicial inquiry into the matter is ongoing.” Ten accused were brought before the court on 2nd October.
The Hathras police have refuted claims that they were “soft” on Bhole Baba and stated that their probe is underway. ASP Ashok Kumar Singh was questioned about whether Hathras police had given Bhole Baba the clean sheet and he replied, “Investigation is an ongoing process and is on in this case too. It is too early to jump to any conclusion based on the charge sheet filed now.”
The FIR in the case was registered under sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 110 (attempt to commit culpable homicide), 126 (2) (wrongful restraint), 223 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by the public servant) and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The stampede happened at a satsang (religious gathering) presided over by Bhole Baba, a resident of Patiyali tehsil in the Kasganj district of Uttar Pradesh’s Bahadur Nagar hamlet.
Bhole Baba showed up in Bahadur Nagar village on 17th July, fifteen days after the stampede and declared, “Honi ko kaun taal sakta hai, jo aaya hai, use ek din jana hai (No one can prevent the turn of fate, one who has taken birth, has to die one day).” He placed the blame on a “conspiracy” and “a poisonous spray” in an attempt to escape accountability. His attorney AP Singh also alleged the instance happened when “some poisonous substance” was sprayed by 15-16 “unidentified men” who left the scene when people started to drop dead.
On 9th July, a week after the stampede, the SIT handed its report to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow. Six officials were suspended in the first action, including the SDM, the tehsildar, the circle officer, and the in-charge of the Sikandra Rau police station. The possibility of a “big conspiracy” causing the stampede was not ruled out by the SIT which also referred to the political ties of Bhole Baba. The Hathras stampede case is also being investigated by a different judicial commission led by retired Allahabad High Court judge Brijesh Kumar Srivastava.
As per reports, the stampede happened when ‘devotees’ rushed to collect the ‘charan dhool’ of Bhole Baba. Many slipped in the mud and eventually a large number of people started falling on one another.
