New Delhi, August 3: A large piece of luggage falling from a passenger’s head sparked the stampede that killed 18 people at New Delhi railway station in February, Indian Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told Parliament on Friday, citing findings from a high-level inquiry.
The stampede, which occurred on February 15 around 8:48 p.m., left four children and eleven women among the dead. It happened on foot-over-bridge 3 connecting platforms 14 and 15 during a heavy evening rush as thousands converged to board Bihar-bound trains amid the Maha Kumbh festival in Prayagraj.
“There was a big headload falling from one of the passengers and the pressure was passed on to the stairs… resulting in the tripping of passengers,” Vaishnaw said in a written reply to Samajwadi Party MP Ramji Lal Suman.
Post-mortem reports confirmed the victims died from traumatic asphyxia. The inquiry committee found that while crowd management protocols were technically in place, passenger density on the bridge had begun rising significantly after 8:15 p.m. Many people were carrying large headloads, contributing to restricted movement on the 25-foot-wide structure.
Railway records showed that 7,600 unreserved tickets were sold that evening, at a rate of 1,500 per hour, with crowds building from 6 p.m. onwards. The incident, India’s deadliest rail-station stampede since the 2017 Elphinstone Road tragedy in Mumbai, drew criticism from experts who called it avoidable and a result of poor crowd management.
In response, Vaishnaw announced a sweeping overhaul of crowd control infrastructure and practices across 73 high-footfall railway stations.
Key reforms include:
- Creation of permanent holding areas outside stations to prevent platform overcrowding.
- Restriction of platform entry to only those with confirmed tickets.
- Sealing of all unauthorized entry points and introduction of complete access control.
- Replacement of narrow footbridges with wider 12-metre and 6-metre-wide structures equipped with ramps.
- Deployment of surveillance systems, including CCTVs, war rooms, and digital communication tools such as walkie-talkies and PA systems.
Additionally, each major station will have a designated station director with financial and operational authority to manage emergency crowd situations. Ticket sales will be regulated based on real-time capacity assessments, and staff identification will be streamlined to ensure only authorised personnel can access station premises.
Pilot projects implementing these reforms are already underway in New Delhi, Anand Vihar, Varanasi, Ayodhya, and Ghaziabad, Vaishnaw told lawmakers.
