A devastating stampede at the Chorbagan puja pandal in Kolkata during Durga Puja claimed 19 lives and injured 25 others, prompting a Special Investigation Team probe, political controversies, and compensation for the grieving families.

A devastating stampede at the Chorbagan puja pandal in Kolkata during Durga Puja claimed 19 lives and injured 25 others, prompting a Special Investigation Team probe, political controversies, and compensation for the grieving families.

A devastating stampede at the Chorbagan puja pandal in Kolkata during Durga Puja claimed 19 lives and injured 25 others, prompting a Special Investigation Team probe, political controversies, and compensation for the grieving families.

Like every year, Durga Puja was meant to be a time of prayers, devotion, reunions with friends, celebrations and pandal hopping. It is a festival that residents of West Bengal eagerly await, drawing visitors from across the country. What should never have happened, however, was the stampede at the Chorbagan puja pandal in Kolkata on October 17, which claimed 19 lives and left 25 people injured.

A Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been formed, headed by retired judge Anindita Roy Saraswati. Nine people have been arrested, including the person who allegedly made announcements urging people to leave the pandal immediately through a single entry-exit point, claiming that it was about to collapse.

Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari met the families of the deceased and handed over compensation cheques of ₹25 lakh. He also assured them of government jobs, pensions for elderly parents and Ayushman Bharat health insurance for their families. Yet, the questions many grieving families asked on the day of the incident and in its aftermath was simple: Could compensation or a government job bring back their loved ones? What about the hope that vanished overnight? How will these families come to terms with the fact that their loved ones, their breadwinners, had stepped out for pandal hopping, only never to return home?

Local residents living near the Chorbagan pandal allege that committee members were unavailable when help was needed. According to them, it was neighbours who rescued people and rushed them to hospitals. They also alleged that neither the police nor ambulances were immediately available.

The larger question remains: where are the leaders of the Chorbagan puja committee? The names of BJP leaders such as Tamaghna Ghosh and Vijay Ojha have surfaced in connection with the incident. The Mamata Banerjee faction of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has also raised questions about Suvendu Adhikari’s nephew, Devdeep Adhikari, who is a committee member.

For the BJP, the tragedy has become a major setback, coming during the first Durga Puja organised by its government. The party continues to attempt damage control. But no amount of damage control can bring back the 19 lives lost or erase the memory of that night for their families—a night when the lights of celebration were forever dimmed.