Puri's chariot
festival attracts nearly
a million devotees annually
At least six
pilgrims have been killed and 20 others injured
in a stampede at a Hindu religious festival
in eastern India, officials have said. The
incident occured on Friday during a procession
outside the temple of God Jagannath in Orissa
state's Puri district, Pramod Mohanty, a senior
medical officer, said.
"The dead include
three men and three women," Mohanty said,
adding that four of those injured in the accident
were in a critical condition.
J K Panda, a police inspector,
said the stampede occurred as worshippers pressed
forward to touch the statue of the goddess Subhadra,
which was being carried in a chariot.
About one million people
were in Puri on Friday to attend the opening
day of the week-long annual chariot festival,
authorities said.
Three Hindu deities, Jagannath,
Balabhadra and Subhadra, are taken out of the
temple and then transported in colourfully-decked
chariots to anotther nearby temple for a week's
stay.
Pilgrims jostle with
each other to pull the chariots, considering
it to be a holy task.
