Guwahati: The Hathras stampede which has claimed 121 lives, mostly of women and children, was a result of greed in the name of religious preaching.
On Tuesday when 2.5 lakh people gathered for the Satsang in Hathras, the administration as well as the devotees had absolutely no idea of the tragedy that was going to happen.
According to reports, the organizer of the event Manav Mangal Milan Committee, had permission to allow 80,000 people and it was their greed which motivated them to permit three times more the capacity for that gathering.
According to locals, the religious preacher Vishwa Hari Bhole Baba alias Surajpal Singh allegedly charged Rs 10 lakh per sitting in Satsang from the organizers and this meant that the organizers needed to allow more people in the gathering as the devotees were charged a nominal fee to attend the Santang.
According to reports, the stampede took place when the Baba’s bodyguards started pushing and beating the devotees to keep them away from the Baba when he was leaving the event.
The devotees wanted to touch the Baba’s feet and collect ‘gulal’ (made from the Rangoli he had stepped into).
Apparently, the Baba who has been absconding since Tuesday when the stampede occurred is yet to be located by the Uttar Pradesh police.
The Baba actually witnessed the stampede happening and instead of helping his devotees who were screaming, the Baba quickly got into his car and escaped.
According to reports, all the six cars in his convoy drove off along with the bodyguards who too left on their motorcycles.
The Baba had around 100 bodyguards in that event.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in a press conference said that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) would probe the stampede incident.
He also said that Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) would be created to avoid such incidents in the future.
Alarmingly, the ‘Baba’ is not named in the FIR and neither are his associates. The FIR only has names of the organizers which clearly questions the credibility of the Uttar Pradesh police.
According to the local police, the Baba is not in his Ashram and he has not been located since the incident.
Who is Vishwa Hari Bhole Baba?
Religious preacher Vishwa Hari Bhole Baba alias Surajpal Singh was a former Uttar Pradesh Police Constable.
The self-acclaimed ‘Baba’ left his service in the police 18 years ago to become a religious preacher.
According to reports, during his service with the UP police, the ‘Baba’ aka Surajpal was posed across 12 police stations and was also part of the state’s intelligence unit.
It has been learnt that the ‘Baba’ voluntarily took retirement from the police service and changed his name to Vishwa Hari Bhole Baba and started conducting Satsangs across locations in western Uttar Pradesh.
Soon he enhanced his religious followers and they spread to states like Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi.
The ‘Baba’ belongs to the Jatav community and his followers are primarily from the SC/ST and OBC communities.
The ‘Baba’ is not new to controversy and during the COVID-19 time in 2022, he conducted a Satsang in Farrukabad in Uttar Pradesh where permission was given for only 50 devotees to attend.
But, more than 50,000 people came for the event and it became a massive headache for the administration and an FIR was lodged against the organizers.
The most interesting part is unlike other religious preachers, this ‘Baba’ likes to remain low-key and doesn’t believe in flaunting himself on social media.
Moreover, he also doesn’t wear the usual saffron colour attire but can be seen wearing white-clad dresses.
In most of the Satsangs, the ‘Baba’ is accompanied by his wife and according to reports he lives in a posh ashram in Uttar Pradesh’s Patiyali area in Kasganj.
The Sansangs are mostly conducted on a Tuesday which is known to be the day of ‘Bajrangbali.’ All these events are organized by his devotees who are also called ‘sevadars’