11 years ago, a warning at Kolkata’s Deshapriya Park that foretold a tragedy

Eleven years ago, a warning at Kolkata’s Deshapriya Park foretold a tragedy that would unfold at Chorbagan Sarbojanin in North Kolkata. A sudden surge in the crowd, exacerbated by rain, triggered a stampede, claiming the lives of 18 individuals and leaving dozens injured. This event serves as a stark reminder of a lesson Kolkata should have learned a decade prior. Although there had been no previous fatal stampede in Kolkata during Puja celebrations, crowd control has always been a persistent challenge.

The incident at Chorbagan evokes memories of 2015, when the same park witnessed a similar incident involving an 88-foot Durga idol, touted as the tallest in the world. As massive, uncontrolled crowds rushed into the narrow neighborhood streets even before the festival officially commenced, many suffered severe suffocation and panic, particularly children and the elderly. At that time, 11 people were reportedly injured, with only 2-3 receiving medical assistance.

The Kolkata Police intervened, deeming the enormous installation a security hazard, and subsequently closed off public access to the park, ultimately dismantling the idol. This incident was intended as a wake-up call, highlighting that mega-scale festival gatherings cannot rely solely on planning but must incorporate rigorous crowd control measures.

Despite the establishment of administrative guidelines since 2015, the tragedy at Chorbagan underscores that public safety remains inadequately prioritized. In dense neighborhoods with narrow lanes, thousands of people are pushed into bottlenecked pandal entryways without proper queue staggering or dynamic capacity management, creating extreme risk.

When sudden weather changes or massive crowd influxes occur, barricades fail, exit routes become blocked, and panic ensues. The Chorbagan incident demonstrates that crowd management this year was reactive rather than proactive.

A senior Kolkata Police officer, who has previously managed Puja crowds, stated, "What happened in Chorbagan shows that crowd management this year wasn’t proactive but reactive." Another official echoed similar sentiments, emphasizing that crowd control measures were not adequately planned. West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee Subhankar Sarkar questioned the safety arrangements at Puja pandals, expressing shock at the unprecedented loss of life during the Durga Puja festival.

He questioned why police presence with bulldozers was necessary to break up a bookstore in Jadavpur, while in the aftermath of a pandal collapse, sufficient police presence was lacking. The families left in darkness following the loss of their loved ones in Kolkata’s Durga Puja festivities deserve answers, and the responsibility for this catastrophe must be identified.

According to the police, famous, mega-budget pandals typically attract an average of three to six lakh visitors daily, from Saptami to Navami. A retired police officer reiterated that crowd management must be the top priority in Durga Puja planning, with real-time footfall monitoring, maximum capacity limits enforced, and unblocked emergency corridors.