Why did so many people have to die at Puri?
By Valmiki
This isn’t actually a critique. It is really a simple question. Why did so many people have to die or get injured at Puri during the annual Ratha Yatra festival on July 16 ?
Administrative failure yes, and comprehensively so, but it still rankles. Administrations in Orissa or locally in Puri aren’t any greenhorns about Ratha Yatra crowd management. It doesn’t matter whether the ruling dispensation in the state is the Biju Janata Dal or the Bhartiya Janata Party, crowd control techniques should by now have been honed to perfection. But it surely hasn’t.
Truth is that over the years Puri has witnessed a steady deterioration in crowd quality around the time Ratha Yatra and particularly on the day itself or on the one they call Bahuda Yatra nine days later. There are basically two types that make the Puri crowd : the genuinely devout and the masquerading devotees. Fortunately, the first is overwhelmingly more. Much more, even now. And there is no news angle in them per se because they only come to have the darshan of the Lord and touch the holy rope that pulls the chariots of the siblings. They come from far and wide, many on a fast and they wait endless hours for a glimpse of the Lord. It is the second category that is interesting. They too come from various states, make a quiet entry when the Grand Road is choc a bloc full. They chant the Lord’s name, station themselves conveniently everywhere and mingle with the section of devotees immediately in front of the chariots, Lord Balabhadra’s to start off with. They are the snatchers, the pickpockets, the knifers and the stampede catalysts.
The moment the chariots begin to surge ahead, this miscreants start running ahead of the chariots, yelling at the top of their voices to clear the way even as they start snatching gold chains, ear rings or whatever they can lay their hands on. They pick pockets with magical ease, robbing you of whatever cash you had in your wallet, or debit cards and ofcourse mobile phones. They operate in gangs and to make money-making easier, they trigger stampedes just as the chariots pass by, forcing you to balance and stumble. That makes their job easier while you risk being either trampled upon by people or crushed by the chariot wheels.
How do I know ? Because I have had the gold chain around my neck snatched in Puri on the Ratha Yatra day,exactly the same way back in 2019. The gangs come from all over — Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh. They bond with various Orissa and Puri gangs and together, they make merry. Confessions by Orissa police are relatively rare in this regard, but reports reveal that in 2023 apparently, they arrested 90 plus snatchers, recovered over 100 mobile phones, updated data on 300 plus local antisocial elements and hauled in a 14-member pickpocket gang from West Bengal.
Indicative. In the last three years, the number of crimes can only have risen manifold whether the police in Puri admits it or not. Crimes of this sort do not happen without law enforcers, or a section of them, being deliberately lax about it. This year, it has just broken all records. As an extremely sad Ipsit Pratihari, hallowed priest of Jagannath Temple said hours after Thursday’s incident, “Countless meetings were held in the run up to D-Day and despite that, everybody failed”. Time for Orissa and Puri police to do some serious introspection, because the overall economic activity generated by the Ratha Yatra exceeds Rs 1,500 crore by modest estimates.
(The author is a writer)
