According to the ground reports, the Jhunsi stampede also happened due to excessive crowd pressure and the closed pontoon bridges as some of the women devotees fell to the ground after getting suffocated in the crowd pressure and could not get up again as people ran over them. During the media briefing on Wednesday, Mela authorities, including Mela officer Vijay Kiran Anand and DIG Vaibhav Krishna, talked about only the casualties that took place in the stampede at Sangam Nose. As per the video clips of the Jhunsi incident went viral on social media and ground reports – TNIE doesn’t confirm the veracity of these videos – despite heavy rush of devotees aspiring for a Snan on Mauni Amavasya, things were well under control till 6 am and pilgrims were returning to exit Mela after taking the early morning dip in Sector 18. As they were moving out of the mela premises they came under the crowd of devotees rushing towards the ghats from the opposite direction. The crowd kept on swelling with people from two directions joining the melee. As per the eyewitnesses quoted by some media reports, amid the chaos for nearly half an hour, the crowd stormed into the nearby power substation and even kiosks in the area in a bid to get out of the troubled site and save life. However, the sources on the ground claimed that in the aftermath of Jhunsi crush, police personnel reached the spot and called the ambulances ferrying the injured to the central hospital.According to figures provided by the state government, an estimated 7.65 crore devotees took a dip in the holy confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati rivers on Mauni Amavasya.
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