Bodies of all victims identified and handed over to their relatives

Hathras: The bodies of all the victims of the Hathras stampede have been identified and handed over to their families, District Magistrate Ashish Kumar said on Thursday.

A total of 121 people, mostly women, died and 31 were injured in the stampede that broke out during the satsang of preacher Baba Bhole in Hathras on Tuesday.

After the stampede, 21 bodies were taken to Agra, 28 to Etah, 34 to Hathras and 38 to Aligarh, authorities said.

“All the bodies have been identified and handed over (to the respective families),” Kumar said. PTI here thursday.

He said that of the three bodies that were unidentified until Wednesday, two were identified late at night and one through video call on Thursday morning.

“The last body was identified by the family through a video call. They are on their way to Aligarh hospital (to collect the body),” the district magistrate added.

Kumar, a 2015 batch IAS officer who joined Hathras as DM barely a week before the stampede, said there were no reports of missing persons as of now.

“We deployed district administration personnel to count the number of people who attended the event ('satsang') and returned,” he said.

The Uttar Pradesh government has announced a financial assistance of Rs 2 lakh to the families of the dead and Rs 50,000 to the injured,” the officer said.

The Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday formed a three-member judicial commission, headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, to probe the Hathras tragedy and also the possibility of a “conspiracy” behind the stampede. The commission will submit its report in two months.

Police have lodged an FIR against the organisers of the 'satsang' near Phulhari village in Hathras, accusing them of cramming 2.5 lakh people into the venue despite having obtained permission for only 80,000.

Mukhya sevadar Devprakash Madhukar and other organisers are named as accused in the FIR lodged at Sikandra Rau police station on Tuesday night. The preacher, who goes by the name Jagat Guru Saakar Vishwahari Bhole Baba, is not named in the list.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who visited Hathras on Wednesday and met the injured, was questioned as to why the preacher was not named in the FIR as an accused.

He said: “Prima facie, a complaint has been filed against those who requested permission to hold the event. Whoever is responsible for this situation will be subject to this jurisdiction.”