The government must learn lessons from the Shirgao tragedy
Goa is the last place where one would have anticipated a killer stampede to strike. That too at a popular religious festival of Shree Lairai Devi. As the hours pass, and the seriousness of this disaster slowly sinks in, questions have been asked and theories floated in cyberspace.
Stampedes are deadly stuff, but we realise this only after the damage is done. Perhaps, for the first time, a thousand policemen were posted for “the smooth conduct of the jatra and to maintain law and order.” A senior police officer had told the media a day before the jatra that “Aerial drones have been placed for covering the aerial view and to maintain surveillance on the movements of the crowd.” One would say good arrangement on the face of it, but what went wrong? Were the guidelines of crowd management as mandated by the Central Disaster Management Authority followed? Well, the fact-finding committee headed by Commissioner and Secretary to the Government, Sandip Jacques, will submit its report detailing the reasons for the stampede.
India has indeed experienced a noticeable increase in stampedes in recent years, particularly at large religious gatherings. Recently, stampedes killed at least 40 at the Maha Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj in January 2025, while Hathras saw 121 deaths in July 2024. In February 2025, at least 18 pilgrims were killed in a stampede at the New Delhi Railway Station, and there have been other such incidents too.
Stampedes have been blamed on overcrowding, inadequate infrastructure, poor planning and management, panic and rumours. To be fair, India alone is not hit by stampedes, but that can be no alibi for not showing enough concern and caution. In 1990 and 2015, some 1,426 and 2,400 Hajj pilgrims died in Saudi Arabia. Even the ‘developed world’ is not spared. Stampedes have killed people in Ivory Coast and Peru, among others. At the UK’s Hillsborough Disaster (1989), 97 deaths occurred during an FA Cup semis, while the US faced a stampede at a concert of The Who.
The recent rise in stampedes in India—especially at religious events—reflects deeper issues. There’s more than crowding and poor management here. There has been an exponential rise in large-scale gatherings too, including religious ones.
Social media is amplifying events too. We are still largely unaware of concepts of crowd science. This field – studying how people behave and move in groups, especially in high-density settings like festivals, stadiums, protests, or pilgrimages – is essential in the world’s most populous nation. Its aim is to predict, monitor and manage crowd behaviour to ensure safety and prevent disasters like stampedes. In this field, issues like density thresholds, crowd flow versus crowd pressure, bottlenecks and choke points, modelling and simulation, and real-time monitoring are deployed.
The government authorities must stop blaming the crowd behaviour or “sudden surge in the crowd”. There is no doubt that crowd management was a failure. It is unfortunate that six precious lives have been lost and several are still hospitalised.
For the government, safety of the devotees must be the top priority when religious congregations and festivals take place. There are lessons to learn from this tragedy. As we have said in the past, inter-departmental coordination has to be improved. Goa needs a protocol and SOP, a comprehensive plan for crowd management for any big event, not necessarily for a religious one.
