Stampede at New Delhi Railway Station-The new system has failed multiple times

Admin

A junior functionary will be quickly named and punished and every level of middle and senior management will go back to doing more of the same

Shubhranshu

It is a pity that #NorthernRailway, specifically the Delhi Division, which has a tested and proven protocol of crowd handling, goofed up big time. The stampede at the #NewDelhi Railway Station on February 15, 2025 was the result, where 18 innocent and unsuspecting #Mahakumbh goers were crushed to death and several more injured.

Their #crowd management practices have been honed over decades of handling even bigger crowds going for #Chhath, #DurgaPuja, and #Holi-Diwali in exactly the same direction – East. It is not that the #Kumbh rush happened only on February 15; crowds were gathering and travelling for over a month now. #CCTV records of earlier days can establish that. Yet none bothered to plan for it.

Blame is being laid at the travellers – they congregated in huge numbers, they bought a large numbers of tickets, announcements were not heeded properly. But #security and #commercial staff, let alone senior officers, were absent from their posts.

None of these is unprecedented – crowds have come, special trains have been run, tickets have been sold, officers have been absent on many earlier occasions. Yet no failure was anticipated, no plans made. They just had to replicate the Chhath arrangements.

A junior functionary will be quickly named and punished and every level of middle and senior management will go back to doing more of the same.

Senior officers are now being appointed after unprecedented levels of check and scrutinies – Emotional Quotient, “360 degree evaluation and a supposedly objective system of pick-and-choose. Yet the new system has failed multiple times over the last 2-3 years and killed hundreds upon hundreds”.

We should hang our heads in shame.

“Delhi Railway station stampede LIVE: 18 dead, several injured; two-member committee begins probe”

“New Delhi Railway Station Stampede-Mahakumbh Mela Updates”