BBCWarning: The story contains painful details
Indian officials quietly paid compensation to families of multiple people instead of admitting to death, according to a BBC Hindi survey. The deadly crowd in Kumbh MelaThis is the largest religious gathering in the world in the Indian music festival.
The official death toll was 37 years old, but the BBC found 26 cases, with families receiving partial compensation in cash, and 18 more people died without payment.
On March 25, a transparent police team from the northern northern state of India (UP) was tied to neighboring Bihar in cash.
The team visited Gopalganj City, where they met the family of 62-year-old Tara Devi. They handed over Rs 500,000 ($5,758; £4,291) to her son Dhananjay Gond and asked him to record a statement on the video.
In the video, Dhananjay introduced himself, saying, “My mother Tara Devi and I went to Kumbh Mela for the sacred dip. My mother passed away. My mother passed away. The officer came and gave us Rs 5 lakh. We have received it.”
Dananjie said his mother was Crowd love January 29 in Prayagraj city in UP.
The UP government has not released an official list of smashed victims. Tara Devi’s son said police told him that the money he received was the first part of the Rs 2.5 lakh that formally promised the victim’s family. Dhananjay said he has not received the remaining Rs 20 lakh.
ReutersThe UP government said Rs 2.5 lakh has been paid to the families of 35 victims (of the 37 deaths, one victim remains unidentified and the other has no legal heir). A three-member judicial committee has established a term of office to investigate the incident and submit reports within one month has been extended.
However, the BBC found another family, which was inspected for Rs 2.5 lakh. For the other 35 victims, compensation has been transferred to a relative’s bank account.
In addition, the BBC found 26 cases – including Tara Devi, where police paid Rs 500,000 in cash in people’s homes.
In many cases, officials have families signed the documents, but they insist that their relatives die in obsession. (UP government does not usually make up for natural deaths during Kumbh held every 12 years.)
The BBC also confirmed 18 deaths without compensation (excluding the above-mentioned cases where there is no legal heir).
Despite the statements of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath that it only happened in the Sangam’s nose, evidence of four separate crushing events was found in Prayagraj on January 29 – the confluence of three sacred rivers, Ganges, Yamuna and the fabulous Saraswati.
In the weeks of Kumbh Crush, the BBC encountered more than 100 families in 11 Indian states, claiming that their relatives died in tragedy. It verified 82 deaths, with a total of concrete evidence, excluding cases lacking evidence.
Some families hold autopsy, morgue slips, death certificates or photos and videos as proof. The BBC cross-checked local newspapers and spoke with district journalists to track the bodies received, map the locations, and then visited the victim’s family.
The BBC interviewed families and witnesses to reconstruct the timeline of each case – as the victims left the holy, the age of crushes, nearby landmarks, distance from the bathing site and immediate consequences.
From these detailed descriptions, clear patterns appear, resulting in the identities of four crushed positions: Sangam Nose, the Jhusi side of Samudrakup Chauraha, Airavat Marg and Kalpavriksha Gate near Mukti Marg Chaurah.
Most of the full Rs 25 lakh compensation cases listed the death site as “Sectar 7, Fort Kanter, Fort Prayagraj”, about 1.5 km (0.9 miles) from Sangam’s nose.
By contrast, the case received Rs 500,000 mainly mentions “Sector-20 or Sector-21 in jhusi Kumbh Mela area”. Some of these families claim that their relatives died near Sangam’s nose, but their certificates misquoted Jhusi – probably to downplay the scale of the tragedy there.
As for the 18 families who have not received any compensation, there seems to be no one in common that binds them.
For example, at a secret love location, the BBC identified five bodies through photos and numbers sent out in post-mortem formalities. Of these, the families of three victims received Rs 500,000 in cash, while the other two received nothing. From the day of obsession, some other families also had photos showing the bodies of their relatives, but the government did not acknowledge the deaths.
The BBC repeatedly attempted to contact government officials and sent emails to the Ministry of Information and local magistrates. No phone calls were arranged despite commitments from the District Court Office. Attempts to get to the UP police chief were not answered, and Prayagraj’s police commissioner, Tarun Gaba and Mela official Vijay Kiran Anand, refused to answer the question at the time of the incident.
The BBC also found evidence of a crush on love that took place elsewhere outside Sangam’s nose, which the government acknowledged by giving some compensation.
In Jaunpur of UP, Dharmbir Rajbhar’s death of his wife and daughter woman in Airavat Marg Crush, each of whom received Rs 500,000.
Video taken by the BBC on January 29 showed that the family had two bodies sitting at the scene. Back home, Rajbhar showed off the cash bundle and said: “The government promised Rs (Rs 25 lakh), but the police paid only Rs 500,000 each.”
UP police also traveled hundreds of kilometers to Paschim Bardhaman in West Bengal, where they handed over Rs 500,000 to the Vinod Ruidas family.
However, not all families accepted the payment. In Bihar, relatives of Sunaina Devi rejected it. They told the BBC they refused to “sign false documents”.
The BBC has also identified at least five families who have lost relatives near the gates of Kalpavriksha, about 3-4 km from Sangam’s nose.
Panne Lal Sahni’s wife, Kusum Devi, said her husband died at around 8 a.m. on January 29. “People were trampling on his body. I sat in the sun with his body until 4 pm. No one even gave us water.” The family received Rs 500,000 in cash.
Relatives of all five people died near the gate of Kalpavriksha, and there are similar stories to be narrated – they sat on bodies from morning to evening.
As time goes by, 18 more families have stepped forward, claiming that their relatives have died in obsession, but they have not received compensation.
Meena Pandey, from Sultanpur, travels to Kumbh with her husband and neighbor Archana Singh. Archana recalls sitting at the crushing site with Meena until 3pm – seven hours after falling in love.
Relatives said that despite 2,750 AI-backed CCTVs, 50,000 security personnel, drones and ambulances, it didn’t help.
By the afternoon, the body began to decay, Achiner said.
“We have no choice but to take it home.”
Uttar Pradesh Information DepartmentLike Meena Pandey’s family, relatives of Shyamlal Gond of UP Deoria are still waiting for compensation.
His son Bhagirathi Gond worked as a daily wage worker in Bangalore. After a crush, he went to Prayagraj to find his father and arrived at the hospital on February 3.
According to a step from the hospital, Shyamlal Gond died on January 29 at 10.02 local time.
“My father was listed as unidentified. To maintain the records, they (the hospital staff) kept a file. They took photos of the body when they were found and pasted it in the register.”
He added: “It’s hard to identify him by photos. After the fall, his head bent over and his chest was pushed up and his face turned slightly.”
Bhagirathi said hospital staff would not give him a death certificate or any other document.
“They told me to accept the body, but I said I would only do this if I followed some formal procedures,” he said.
It took him four months to get a death certificate. But he is still waiting for compensation.
“The government still hasn’t admitted that my father died in a crush.”
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