Rahul Gandhi visits stampede victims in Datia

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi visited victims of the Ratangarh Temple stampede at the Datia District Hospital on Thursday.

The stampede at the Ratangarh Temple on the last day of the Navratras has put the Madhya Pradesh Government on the back foot.

The Congress Party has held the state government responsible for the stampede, and raised questions as to why no preventive measures were taken to avoid such 'man made' disasters.

The BJP has defended the state government's handling of the situation post the tragedy, and charged the Congress Party with playing politics over dead bodies.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has announced the formation of an inquiry commission, and said that action would be taken within fifteen days of the submission of the report on the stampede.

Seventeen policemen, including three senior officers, have been suspended for dereliction of duty that led to the stampede.

The Navratra festivities ended in tragedy earlier on Sunday when several pilgrims, including women and children, were killed and more than 100 injured in a stampede on a bridge leading to the historic Ratangarh temple in Madhya Pradesh's Datia District.

The injured have been admitted in district hospitals of Datia and Gwalior.

The stampede was triggered by rumours that the river bridge the devotees were crossing was about to collapse.

Survivors alleged that some people spread the rumor that the bridge was on the verge of collapse, resulting in panic.

The disaster was a repeat of the 2006 stampede when more than 50 pilgrims had got washed away falling in panic into the Sindh River off the same bridge in 2006.