2 killed, 7 injured in stampede following landslide in Una

Una (HP), Mar 25 (PTI) Two devotees were killed and seven others injured following a stampede at a shrine due to a landslide in Himachal Pradesh’s Una district on Monday, officials said.

Located around 40 km from Una, Dera Baba Vadbhag Singh in Mairi village of Amb subdivision in Una district, is visited by a large number of people seeking a cure for people possessed by “evil spirits”.

Devotees who had come to take part in the Baba Vadbhag Singh fair were taking bath in the holy spring in Charan Ganga around 5 am when four-five big stones came sliding down from the mountain following a landslide, police said.

Bathing in Charan Ganga is considered sacred and there was a lot of crowd at the holy feet of Ganga on Monday due to the full moon.

Seeing the stones rolling down from the mountain, people started moving helter and there was a stampede, causing injuries to nine devotees.

All the injured were rushed to Civil Hospital Amb for treatment, where two devotees succumbed to injuries. The deceased were identified as Billa and Balveer Chand, residents of Faridkot, Punjab, the officials added.

The police sent the bodies for postmortem. Five of the injured have been sent to Una Zonal hospital while two were referred to PGI Chandigarh.

ASP Sanjeev Bhatia said that ‘the devotees who have been injured are under treatment.

Deputy Commissioner, Una, Jatin Lal said that devotees will not be allowed to take bath in the holy feet of Ganga until the situation becomes normal.

Statements of eyewitnesses present at the incident site will also be recorded, so that the real reasons for the accident can be known, said SP Una Rakesh Singh.