Kolkata stampede: Death in the time of Durga Puja

On October 17, a stampede broke out at a Durga Puja pandal in north Kolkata, claiming 19 lives. The pandal, erected in a narrow space with dim lighting, was filled with people soon after it started raining. Shrabana Chatterjee and Shiv Sahay Singh report on the lapses that led to the tragedy and the questions it has raised about accountability in West Bengal, where the new government’s first Durga Puja celebrations have been marred by controversy

Updated - October 24, 2026 08:40 am IST

Police personnel deployed at the Chorbagan Sorbojanin Durga Puja pandal following a stampede, in Kolkata. | Photo Credit: PTI

On the evening of October 17, Subham Sonkar, 32, was out pandal-hopping with a cousin, both of them dressed in festive finery. It was Saptami, the day of elaborate ritual worship of goddess Durga, when crowds throng the pandals. As a sudden, sharp spell of rain sent people rushing into the Chorbagan Sorbojanin Durga Puja pandal in north Kolkata, pandemonium broke out and the two cousins got separated. While Sonkar died in the crush, the cousin she was with survived.

Vishal Bhel, another cousin, was not at the pandal at the time. He received a call from an unknown number asking him to reach Medical College Kolkata, about one-and-a-half kilometres away from the pandal. Bhel stood shell-shocked outside the emergency building around midnight, having just seen Sonkar’s body. “People walked all over her when she fell down,” he said. “Her whole body was bruised, and her face looked like she had been in a lot of pain. I can’t believe how a happy Durga Puja moment turned into her last moment on earth in just a second.”

Scores of family members of the injured and deceased waited in nervous anticipation and grief as the rest of the city continued to celebrate. A woman sitting at the gate of the emergency building was inconsolable. “Call me Ma one last time,” she cried. “I have nothing left to live for. Please call me Ma one last time, I beg you.”

A few hours earlier, her daughter, Piyali Pramanik, 25, had made a video call to her mother when she was on her way to pandal-hop. Three members of the family died in the tragedy: Pramanik; her sister-in-law, 37-year-old Tager Bhej, and Bhej’s child, 14-year-old Sandip. Both Pramanik and Bhej were from Purba Bardhaman district and had travelled 100 km to participate in the festivities in West Bengal’s capital, where every year, temporary structures are turned into elaborate works of art, streets glow with lights, the sound of drums fills the air, and food stalls sell delicious Bengali bhog (food offering).

The stampede also claimed the lives of both parents of 25-year-old Pritish Ghosh, a resident of Kolkata’s Baranagar area. Dilip Ghosh (59) and Dipali Ghosh (45) had gone to the puja pandal; neither survived. Moved by the plight of the young man, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari offered to become his guardian.

Among the 19 people who lost their lives in the stampede that occurred at 7:40 p.m., according to the police, 13 were female and six were male. Four were minors. Twenty-five others were injured. Preliminary post-mortem reports at the Kolkata Police morgue attributed most of the deaths to traumatic asphyxia caused by chest compression.

An ambulance carrying Durga Puja pandal stampede victims stops in front of the emergency building of Medical College Kolkata. | Photo Credit: AFP

Mismanagement at the pandal

The Chorbagan Sorbojanin Durga Puja pandal was inaugurated by Chief Minister Adhikari on October 12 and generated a lot of attention on social media as a must-visit spot for puja revellers. The theme of the pandal was ‘Aarav-Beyond Sound’. In the narrow by-lanes of north Kolkata, the artist of the pandal had created an even narrower, darker space, inviting revellers to experience silence in the presence of the goddess. Inside the pandal, the grey idol of goddess Durga rose nearly 10 metres above the ground. With 10 hands, two of them holding lotus flowers, she sat silently in padmasana or the lotus pose.

The pandal was in its 91st year. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders had taken over the organising committee only three months ago, following the party’s victory in West Bengal. The pandal’s publicity material, widely circulated in the public domain, identifies BJP Jorasanko MLA Vijay Ojha as the puja committee chairman; BJP north Kolkata district president Tamaghna Ghosh as its chief adviser; and Debdeep Adhikari, nephew of Chief Minister Adhikari, as its chief patron.

Several eyewitnesses and Adhikari claimed that a misleading announcement by the pandal organisers, accompanied by whistle-blowing, had triggered panic. “You all should leave at once; the pandal can collapse any moment,” said the announcer, according to videos making the rounds on social media. In another set of videos, people can be seen holding umbrellas and entering the pandal minutes before the crowd crush.