24 killed in stampede ahead of Hindu ceremony in India

LUCKNOW, India — At least 24 people were killed and 20 others injured in a stampede that occurred as they were crossing a crowded bridge to reach a Hindu religious ceremony in northern India on Saturday, police said. — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 15, 2016 Varanasi, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, is the holiest of seven sacred Hindu sites in India, and said to be the founding place of Buddhism, making it a destination for thousands of pilgrims and tourists One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Varanasi is regarded as the spiritual capital of India. Bhagat, another police officer, said that organizers were expecting 3,000 Hindu devotees at the ceremony, but that more than 70,000 thronged the ashram of a local Hindu religious leader, Jai Baba Gurudev, on the banks of the Ganges River. Panic spread as thousands of Hindu pilgrims tried to cross a bridge to a sacred site in one of the world’s oldest inhabited cities, at the heart of the home constituency of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A stampede among Hindu pilgrims headed to Varanasi, India, kills at least 24 people and injures at least 20.