New Delhi: Almost a stampede like situation was witnessed in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareily on Tuesday January 4 in women marathon was held by Congress leader Supriya Aron
Hundreds of women and young girls participated in this five km run as part of the Congress’s ‘ladki hun, lad sakti hun’ (‘I’m a woman, I can fight’) campaign. When the run was about to begin, however, several participants comprising the front row tripped and fell and were almost trampled by the members behind them.
According to media reports, several children were injured and that three were even taken to the hospital, claiming, however, that they were discharged after receiving first aid. The newspaper also put the attendance figure at around 5,000.
There was, however, cause for concern at the gathering since virtually no one at the event could be seen properly wearing their masks and social distancing protocols were in no way enforced. Given the rapidly increasing cases of COVID-19 infections in the country, spurred by the highly transmissible omicron variant of the virus, such gatherings can lead to even greater infection tallies.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had tried to organise a similar marathon in Lucknow on December 26 as part of the same campaign, however, the Adityanath government in the state had denied permission to host this event, citing COVID protocols and the imposition of Section 144 in the state capital.
Supriya Aron, the Congress leader who organised the event, claimed that there was nothing to worry about and instead, drew attention to the large gatherings at Vaishno Devi which took place on Saturday. A stampede was observed at that shrine as well where 12 people were killed and many were injured.
“These are schoolgirls and they only wanted to come out for a bit. But if anyone is offended for any reason, I want to apologise on behalf of the Congress,” NDTV quoted Aron as saying.
Bareilly district magistrate Manvendra Singh, however, sought for an FIR to be filed, according to the Times of India report.
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