India: At least 21 women were killed in a stampede in northern India yesterday as supporters of a local politician began handing out free saris to celebrate his birthday, officials said.
More than 5,000 people were crammed into a public park in the town of Lucknow when officials announced that the brightly-coloured saris were to be given away.
Bodies were stacked on top of each other on the floor of a small ambulance. Relatives of the dead wailed as they identified their kin. A woman cried hysterically as she found the body of her daughter.
The politician celebrating the birthday, Lalji Tandon of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, had left the park by the time the stampede happened, witnesses said. Piles of saris lay in one corner of the park hours after the incident. - (Reuters)