Tears flow ahead of music   

Detailed report on the stampede at Cusat that claimed four lives. Interaction with eyewitnesses. Expert opinions on the reasons for the accident and preventive measures.

On November 25, Avinash Garg, a 20-year-old from Muzaffarpur, Bihar, was a bundle of energy as he stood waiting for the gate to the sheltered auditorium, open from the sides, on the main campus of the Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat) in Kalamassery, near Kochi, to be thrown open. It was 6.30 p.m. The semi-circular auditorium, on the south-west side of the nearly 310-acre campus, slopes down from the road level and is located adjacent to the varsity canteen and the student amenities centre.

He was looking forward to a performance by the popular singer-song writer Nikhita Gandhi of Bollywood fame, marking Dhishna, the annual techno-fest of the School of Engineering (SoE). Final preparations were on inside the auditorium even as student volunteers were admitting peers in small batches. Those who had paid ₹1,200, about 400 students, were sent in first; the rest, about 700, were waiting outside, say students. At 6.45 p.m. joyful excitement turned to horror.  

“As the laser lights blazed on stage amid an announcement that the programme was about to start, there was a sudden push from the crowd. The gate burst open under the pressure, and I fell. Before I knew what was happening, there was a pile of bodies over me,” recalled a grief-stricken Avinash, who studies BTech Computer Science at SoE. 

He was fortunate to be pulled out alive with minor injuries. But not the four others, including three students of SoE, in what turned out to be Kerala’s worst-ever crowd crush on a campus. Athul Thampi, 23; Sara Thomas, 19; Ann Rifta Roy, 20, all students of SoE, and Albin Joseph, 23, a native of Mundoor, Palakkad, who came to watch the show with his friends in the university, were victims. Nearly 70 were injured, some grievously. Later, the post-mortem reports were to attribute the deaths to traumatic asphyxia as the primary cause of death.  

As television channels flashed the news, a panic-stricken K.M Thampi, a farmer, was desperately trying to reach his son over the phone from their home at Kizhakombu in Koothattukulam town along the eastern suburbs of Kochi. “After a few calls went unanswered, someone attended the call to say that the phone was found lying at the venue. His mother had spoken to him only an hour before and he had assured her that he would call back,” said Athul’s father, his voice choking.  

At Kinder Hospital in Pathadipalam, just a few kilometres from the campus, where some of the injured were rushed to after the tragedy, Sreeragh, sat shaking his head as if to shake off the horrors of the evening. He recollected scooping up a girl who was struggling to get up before being stomped to death. “Her face was covered with footmarks,” he said. 

The victims were among the 2,500-odd students of SoE, who were excited to be part of the techno-fest, a marquee event on the campus, after the pandemic-induced break of three years.