of Police, Home Secretary, and District Collector and Superintendent of Police of Puri district.
Holding the six persons responsible for the alleged lapses on their part, Mohapatra criticised the government for leaving a narrow passage for the devotees that led to the stampede. They created a narrow passage in order to broaden the cordoned area for smooth movement of VVIPs and others, he said.
“The police paid little attention to crowd management and instead kept themselves busy in VVIP security,” the NCP leader said.
Hundreds of cordon passes were issued to those from Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Vedanta University Project and scores of other organisations who had little work near the three chariots of Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Devi Subhadra, Mohapatra said.
He further blamed the Chief Minister observing that Patnaik was killing people in his capacity as Home Minister and giving ex-gratia to the victims as Chief Minister.
The administrative inquiry ordered by the Chief Minister would not serve any purpose, Mohapatra observed. “How an officer can hold an inquiry against the Chief Minister,” Mohapatra asked.
Six persons were killed and around 50 injured in the stampede. Around 20 injured are still undergoing treatment in hospitals in Puri and Cuttack.
In Puri, the police were yet to identify three of the deceased persons and efforts were on to establish identity of the bodies.
On Friday, Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly J.B. Patnaik and Pradesh Congress president Jayadev Jena had also held the government responsible for the stampede.
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