Bhagwant Singh of Muraina, Madhya Pradesh, also attributes the stampede to the unruly crowd of devotees. “While a set of devotees was coming from the Sangam side, another group was heading to the Sangam. The crowd was so massive that people were not able to walk without rubbing shoulders. Suddenly, a few women fell down and the crowd trampled them leading to clamour and screams,” he says.The akharas had to start arriving for the Amrit Snan from 5 am.”I made all the plans to visit Mahakumbh and take the holy dip at Sangam, and when my husband informed me that no boats would operate on Mauni Amavasya and one has to bathe on the banks of the Ganga, I refused to go,” said Anjana, a local resident of Prayagraj.The authorities had made provisions for those coming from outside Prayagraj to bathe at 42 temporary ghats along the banks of the Ganga and return from there, but huge numbers decided to come to Sangam Nose.A reel of Prayagraj Divisional Commissioner Vijay Vishwas Pant is also doing the rounds on social media showing him telling devotees not to sleep and go fast to have a dip and vacate the mela area, but it seems like none adhered to his suggestion.”I am unable to understand who told them (the devotees) that only Sangam Nose is the pious area; in fact, the entire ‘panch kosh’ (around 9.5 km) of the area around Sangam is equally pious,” said the head of Paramhans Ashram (Tikar Mafi), Swami Harichaitanya Brahmchari.“If these devotees are so desperate to bathe in the water of the confluence, better bathe in the lower stream of Ganga (towards Chhatnag) where one gets water of the two rivers,” he added.
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