‘Climbed up the iron grille and clung to it… people died in front of me’: Woman recounts New Delhi Railway Station horror

“Das aadmi turant hi mar gaye. Aankh se dekha hai kal. Bohot ajeeb lag raha hai mujhe (10 people died on the spot. I saw it with my own eyes yesterday. I am feeling very uneasy),” Kiran said, as tears rolled down her face.

Standing near the emergency ward of Lok Nayak Hospital on Sunday, where her brother-in-law, Shailendra Poddar (38), was admitted after he broke his leg in the chaos, Kiran said she had her family were going to the Maha Kumbh.

“My brother-in-law is suffering from cancer and we wanted to go and pray for his recovery. Initially, my family was not willing to make the trip because of the crowd at the Kumbh but they finally agreed and we booked tickets at the last moment,” she said.

“My son Vivek (14) and I reached the station early from our home in Burari… the train was on platform number 14. We sat inside and waited for my sister Aarti (27) and Shailendra to arrive.”

After an hour, she got a call from her sister about the massive rush. “They were unable to identify the platform because many announcements were being made at the same time. There was a lot of confusion and people were going up and down the stairs again and again,” said Kiran.

Asking her son to stay on the train, Kiran stepped out to look for her family. Around the same time, an announcement was made that a special train was leaving from platform number 12. Within minutes, pandemonium broke out as hundreds of panicked people rushed up the stairs and climbed down to catch the train. “I saw my sister and brother-in-law trying to come down the stairs… it was chaos…, she said.

Struggling to navigate the crush, she managed to reach her family and they held onto the grille. However, Shailendra’s leg got stuck between the iron grille and the stairs and he broke his leg. “We tried to pull him up but his leg was broken by then and he was crying in pain,” she added.

Soon after, Kiran said, police officers started pouring in, ambulances arrived and the dead were taken away on stretchers.

She said she had never seen anything like this. “I saw people with blood oozing out of their head, nose, and mouth… their faces smeared in blood…”

“I’ve sent my son back home,” she added.