HATHRAS: Chaos caused after followers of Narayan Sakaar Hari (Bhole Baba) were pushed by the godman’s security and a slippery slope resulted in the stampede at a satsang event at Phulrai village in UP’s Hathras district on Tuesday which killed 121 people, eyewitnesses and preliminary government report said.

“By the time I arrived at the site at around 6 pm, I could see dozens of bodies piled up on both sides of the highway,” said Manu Singh, a resident of the nearby Iqbalpur village.

Locals say that the crowd was so large that the National Highway-91, near which the event took place, was completely closed for 5 km on both sides and occupied, with buses carrying devotees from far-off places. As a result, they say, ambulances took roughly an hour to reach the spot after the stampede, forcing people to arrange for private vehicles to reach nearby hospitals.

Locals put the blame for the tragedy squarely on the sewadars of Bhole Baba who were organising the event. “They should have accounted for the large crowd and made preparations accordingly. It is the poor people who are suffering here,” said Kalicharan Yadav, a resident of Phulrai village where the incident took place.

Shanti Devi, a survivor, described how “after Babaji left, people followed him and tried to pick up the mud from his footsteps. The rush led to people falling on top of each other.”