MULTAN:
At least seven people were killed and more than 100 wounded in a stampede at the Ibne Qasim Bagh Stadium minutes after the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf rally concluded.
The casualties were driven to Multan’s Nishtar Hospital where emergency director Dr Pervez Haider told The Express Tribune that seven people – all aged between 16 and 28 years – were received dead while 45 were admitted to the hospital in a critical condition. Up to 78 other PTI workers were discharged at the request of their families while some were receiving treatment at the emergency ward, he said.
According to witnesses and officials, the stampede was triggered at the end of the rally when thousands of PTI workers scrambled to the exit gates of the stadium which was full to its capacity. The stadium has eight exit gates – all but three were closed for security reasons.
Of the three gates, one was reserved for PTI leaders, the second for families and the third for young party activists, organisers and administration officials said. The commotion started when power supply to the families’ section went off and they moved towards the gate reserved for youngsters.
Some youngsters tried to climb the gate in an attempt to escape the hot and humid conditions inside the stadium. And the shoving and pushing resulted in the stampede. Rescue 1122 officials tried to control the situation by throwing water on the stampeding workers.
The administration had deployed 2,500 policemen for the security of the rally, but the arrangements were disorganised as participants were climbing onto the stage unchecked, though it was reserved for the PTI leadership.
Before the stampede, 18 PTI activists had fainted due to the hot and humid weather and congestion in the stadium. They were, however, shifted to ambulances outside the stadium while the speeches of PTI were ongoing.
PTI district president Ijaz Janjua told The Express Tribune that they had installed power generators as electricity supply was disconnected.
PTI chairman Imran Khan, who flew back to Islamabad after the rally, expressed grief and sorrow over the deaths in the stampede. He didn’t address the dharna at D-Chowk and instead made a brief statement on the tragedy.
Imran held the district coordination officer (DCO), Zahid Saleem Gondal, responsible for the tragedy. He said the district administration was in control of the exit gates and power supply was disconnected to the venue just before the rally.
He said the DCO didn’t cooperate with the PTI over the rally. He called upon the Punjab chief minister to suspend the DCO for negligence and order an inquiry into the incident.
DCO Gondal, however, rejected the allegations of negligence, saying that it was an accident and the chief minister has already ordered an inquiry. Speaking at a news conference in Multan, he claimed that PTI’s local leadership had said that they would take care of all arrangements.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 11th, 2014.
COMMENTS (5)
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@Fikree: "As usual, IK blames others. The fault was of the organizers as they failed to control the exiting crowd. ...."
Pakistani news media almost invariably contains great inaccuracies in reporing. Multan sports ground the venue of the gathering according to some news outlets Mahmood Qureshi claimed it had 6 (?) entry points while others claimed there were 4(?) points! One of the 6 was reserved as a VVIP entrance. The facts can easily be checked if one cares to bother.
I thought part of the PTI campaign has been to rid the country of the VIP culture, truth seems to be something else despite high sounding claims.
@Fikree:
Family members told me police took the promotional leaflet as official pass and kept letting people on stage despite the PTI stage manager requesting them not to--this whole fiasco was all filmed by Gharida of Samaa TV as well where one of the PTI wallah is clearly exlplaining, on live TV, that the coloured handbill shown by a person to gain access, was not a pass! The ladder had to be removed to stop anymore people from climbing the stage and even Imran had to climb the khamba to get on stage and looked really upset.
The live scenes of rescue on many TV channels also show the police just milling about, watching and not doing much else. If there were 2200 policemen there as the DCO says, most of them must have been sleeping in their vans--there were only a handful of useless policemen seen in the footage.
There were only two gates open, not six. As the news item above says, some of them were permanently sealed so there is no question of them being open. The 26 point "contract" only states that stage lights will be provided by admin, not the street/periphery lights. The stage lights were shut a few minutes after the jalsa but other lights were still on. They were shut when people were charging towards the two open gates.
You can blame PTI to vent our poisonous hatred as much as you want, but the RESPONSIBILITY lies squarely on the local administration. If PTI were in power, it would have been the same so hold the right people responsible!
ET, these are all facts so please print.
FIR needed against leadership ofvpti for negligence.
As usual, IK blames others. The fault was of the organizers as they failed to control the exiting crowd. They should have asked those leaving to leave in an organized manner but they failed. SMQ should have done a better job at organizing the SECURITY aspect of the rally. This would have been a painstaking job for which he is not fit. Even Sheikh Rasheed, clearly stated that the organizers were at fault. He said that he had to descend through a pole to reach the dais and similarly had to climb it back to get out of the premises. Now, how could the city or district management be responsible for that?
FIR time