Eight months after the Indore stepwell tragedy that killed 36 persons at the Beleshwar Mahadev Jhulelal temple on Ramnavami Day, the Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court had served notices to the temple trust, the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) and the state government, seeking an update on action in the matter.
The division bench of judges Vivek Rusia and Anil Verma has asked the government to file the magisterial probe record in the court while seeking reply as to why a charge sheet had not been filed in the police case. The court was hearing two public interest litigations filed in the matter. The respondents have been asked to file the reply in four weeks.
The IMC and temple trusts have also been asked to respond regarding action taken in the matter, Manish Yadav, lawyer of petitioner Mahesh Garg told THE WEEK. Garg is a former corporator. The other petitioner is Congress leader Pramod Dwivedi.
Sources said the court has asked the government why different compensations were paid to families of victims and why it was paid by the government and not recovered from the temple trust – which is responsible for the tragedy.
In the tragic incident on March 30, devotees attending Ramnavami rituals in the temple had died after falling into the muck-filled stepwell, as the roof of the ancient stepwell, being used as the floor of the modern temple constructed over it, had collapsed suddenly.
The incident had caused a huge uproar with the role of the temple trust and the IMC becoming suspect in the matter. The IMC had served two notices to the Beleshwar Mahadev Jhulelal Temple Trust regarding a newer illegally under construction temple adjacent to the existing temple (spot of accident). The latest notice was served just three months before the tragedy. However, the trust’s reply had mentioned public sentiments attached to the project, while refusing any illegality.
Interestingly, the trust authorities themselves mentioned about the paved-over stepwell and the plan of its restoration in its reply to IMC, but the municipal authorities failed to take any cognizance of the information. Later, IMC authorities claimed to have no record of the closed stepwell used to construct a temple. THE WEEK had done a detailed report on these aspects of the incident.
FIR was lodged against the temple trust authorities and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had ordered a magisterial probe. However, no police action has been taken on the temple trust authorities including no arrests. The magisterial probe report is yet to see the light of the day. All these points have been taken up in the PILs.
As per the available information with THE WEEK, the stepwell situated in Patel Nagar, part of the scheme number 31 of the Indore Development Authority (IDA), is at least 200 years old. Its 800 square feet top opening (mouth) was covered first with a metal lid. Then only four iron girders were laid, normal metal rebars and concrete were used to form a thin cover over the mouth. This was then paved with tiles to form the floor of the temple structure. Then, walls were constructed around this ‘floor’ and a tin shed was set up as a roof to the temple.
Idols of Lord Shiva and other Hindu gods are placed at the edge of the covered stepwell, close to the walls constructed around it. The idols are said to be present at the edge of the stepwell from before the construction of the temple structure.
The devotees were sitting on this flimsy roof of the stepwell/floor of the temple and performing fire ritual (havan) on Ramnavami, when the tragedy occurred.
