Barabanki Temple Stampede: SDM Removed, New Official Takes Charge

Barabanki Temple Stampede: After the recent stampede at Avsaneshwar Temple in Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh that claimed two lives, Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Haidergarh Shams Tabrez Khan has been removed from his post.

Rajesh Vishwakarma has been posted as the new Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Haidergarh and took charge at the temple on Thursday.

District Magistrate Shashank Tripathi had ordered the transfer of Tabrez following public dissatisfaction over poor arrangements during the first two Mondays of Sawan at the popular Shiva temple. He has now been posted as special land acquisition officer at the collectorate.

Although local volunteers and temple committee members did not raise any complaints publicly, whispers were that Tabrez was not present on either of the two Mondays. Other key officials like tehsildar and naib tehsildar were also absent.

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On Thursday evening, Vishwakarma visited the Avsaneshwar Temple, offered prayers and inspected the temple premises and the fairground. He gave strict instructions to ensure no lapse in devotees’ safety.

At the Gomti River ghat where devotees take bath before offering holy water to the deity, Vishwakarma found the water level had risen but there were no safety arrangements. He immediately ordered to barricade the ghat and instructed the revenue and police teams on site.

During a joint inspection with temple committee chairman Sanjay Giri, manager Vinod Giri and priest Atul Goswami, Vishwakarma reviewed all arrangements and instructed to correct wherever shortcomings were found.

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He also directed to deploy adequate police force at all critical points inside and outside the temple premises for the upcoming Monday. Two ambulances have been made mandatory.

Two people were killed and 32 injured in the stampede at the temple after a live electric wire, broken by monkeys, fell on a tin shed early on Monday, officials said. The electric current spread through the tin shed as the wire fell and triggered panic and stampede in the temple premises.

Earlier, DGP Uttar Pradesh Rajeev Krishna at a program in Lucknow said the deaths were due to electrocution and not stampede.

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