Two devotees killed, seven injured in stampede at Una shrine following landslip

Two devotees were killed and seven injured at a shrine in Himachal Pradesh’s Una district on Monday following an early morning stampede triggered by a landslip, officials said.

The incident happened at Dera Baba Vadbhag Singh at Mairi village.

The shrine is located around 40 km from Una and is visited by a large number of people seeking a cure for those possessed by “evil spirits”.

Sacred ritual

Devotees who had come to take part in the Baba Vadbhag Singh fair were taking bath in the holy spring in Charan Ganga around 5 a.m. when four or five big stones came sliding down from the mountain, the police said.

Crowded site

Bathing in ‘Charan Ganga’ is considered sacred. There was a lot of crowd on Monday in view of the full moon.

Seeing the stones rolling down from the mountain, people started moving helterskelter leading to a stampede, which caused injuries to nine devotees.

All the injured were rushed to the Civil Hospital

Amb for treatment, where two devotees died.

Charan Ganga will be offlimits to devotees till situation becomes normal, says Deputy Commissioner

2 victims from Punjab

The deceased were identified as Billa and Balveer Chand, residents of Punjab’s Faridkot, the officials added. The police sent the bodies for postmortem examination.

Five of the injured have been sent to the Una Zonal hospital while two were referred to PGI Chandigarh.

Una Deputy Commissioner Jatin Lal said devotees would not be allowed to take bath in Charan Ganga until the situation becomes normal.

Statements of witnesses from the incident site will also be recorded, so that the real reasons for the accident can be known, said SP Una Rakesh Singh.