The fatal stampede during a Zakat and food giveaway in Chattogram (Chittagong) happened as the crowd swelled out of control, according to witnesses.
On Monday, nine people—all of them women died and several others were injured in Satkania Upazila during the giveaway organised by business conglomerate KSRM Group.
The incident happened at the grounds of a local madrsa in the Upazila’s Nalua Union, which happens to be KSRM Group boss Md Shahjahan.
“The ground could accommodate up to 10, 000 people. But twenty to thirty thousand people gathered that day,” Taslima Absar, the local union council chairperson, told Bangla Tribune.
Blaming the business group for mismanagement, she said, “They should have anticipated of the huge gathering.”
According to Absar, KSRM (Kabir Steel Re-rolling Mill) organises the giveaway every year, but this year, it did not make a list of the recipients and provided them with cards to collect the charity goods. “It has been done that way every time except for this year.”
The business group had announced way ahead that on May 14 it will organise the giveaway at the madrasa ground. Locals said people as far as from the Bandarnan hill tract districts gathered in Nolua for the charity.
This correspondent visited the stampede site on Tuesday, when it was found that the pavilion built for the giveaway can accommodate a maximum of 5,000 people.
But witnesses said at least 20,000 people were there on Monday and that the number of volunteers was insufficient.
According to them, only 50 to 60 female police personnel and another 200 more members of the KSRM staff were deployed for handling the crowd.
The giveaway started after the early morning prayers.
“Everything was fine until 9am, but that was not the case later in the day when the crowd grew heavier,” witness Morshedul Alam, who was working on dismantling the pavilion, told Bangla Tribune.
A local resident, asking not to be named, said as soon as the food giveaway started thousands flocked to the madrasa ground.
“With the crowd swelling out of control, people jostled to enter the ground. The security staff charged batons then causing some women to fall, only to be trampled by the crowd,” he told Bangla Tribune.
Shamsul Alam, who teaches at a local madrasa echoed. “The fatal incident happened as the crowd went out of control.”
KSRM says their plan was to organise a giveaway for 20,000 people.
“It was a two-day event and on the first day, we arranged for 10,000 people. We had kept doctors and an ambulance stand-by. But things went out of control as too many people gathered. Heatstroke may have caused the deaths,” said Deputy General Manager Shakhawat Hossain told Bangla Tribune.
He claimed a 100-strong police force as well as nearly 250 KSRM staffers were deployed for managing the crowd.
“Everything was going fine. The women queued up to collect the food items. When the crowd grew as the day passed, we opened up two more distribution points.”
Hossain said that unlike every year, this time they did not prepare a list for recipients prior to the giveaway. “And that’s why the number of people was way more than what we had estimated.”
Meanwhile, a victim’s family has sued KSRM over the deaths.
One Mohammad Islam started a case on Tuesday against the KSRM Managing Director Md Shahjahan and several other unidentified people.
“He is the husband of Hasina Akter, who died during the charity giveaway,” Satkania Police OC Rafiqul Islam told Bangla Tribune.
The case accuses the KSRM boss of mismanagement and negligence, which caused the deaths, added the police officer.