Stampede at Kolkata Durga Puja Pandal Kills at Least 19

Updated Oct 19, 2026

Kolkata Police have issued a new set of crowd rules for every Durga Puja pandal in the city for the rest of the festival, two days after the crush at the Chorbagan Sarbojanin pandal killed 19 people and injured 25. The directives from Police Commissioner Ajay Nand cancel all VIP passes with immediate effect and end separate VIP queues. No VIP vehicle may come near a pandal gate. Entry and exit points must stay completely clear, with no food stalls at the access points.

Each pandal must now have at least one police constable stationed inside, on top of its own volunteers. Inspectors have been given Manpack radio sets so police and puja committees can talk without gaps, and police will monitor the announcements organisers make on public address systems, after confusing announcements on Saturday were named as one cause of the panic. Organisers must keep pandal interiors well lit, keep raincoats in stock, and arrange ambulances for each zone. Devotees may not take shelter inside pandals during rain, because the rush for shelter in Saturday's downpour helped trigger the crush, and police officers on duty may not leave their posts while it rains. Videography inside pandals is restricted so crowds keep moving.

The state government has put nine senior IPS officers with festival experience on crowd duty across the city, and medical teams from city hospitals are posted at the biggest pandals from 5 p.m. to 6 a.m. until immersion day. Autopsies on the victims found suffocation and crushed ribs as the causes of death. Two patients remain in intensive care. Seven people have been arrested in the case, including two senior office bearers of the Chorbagan Sarbojanin committee.

Updated 05:40 UTC, Oct 18, 2026. Kolkata Police said on Sunday that mismanagement and confusing announcements led to the stampede, and that officers planned to question survivors as part of the investigation. A forensic team collected evidence at the pandal on Saturday night, and a second team, with officers from the Detective Department, was due to visit on Sunday. Police Commissioner Ajay Nand imposed prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the BNSS on roads adjoining the pandal, in the Bowbazar police station area, until October 20, banning unlawful assemblies of five or more people. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari ordered a Special Investigation Team headed by a sitting judge of the Calcutta High Court. Police have registered a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder on their own motion, and Home Minister Amit Shah visited survivors at the hospital on Sunday.

Updated 05:05 UTC. The death toll from the stampede rose to 19, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said, and 25 people were still in treatment. Six of the dead had been identified, he said. Police detained 12 people on Saturday night, among them puja organisers, private security guards and civic volunteers, PTI reported. The state government will pay Rs 25 lakh and give a government job to the family of each person killed, pay Rs 5 lakh to each injured person, and cover the full cost of treatment, Adhikari said. He said the government would ask the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to set up a probe headed by a sitting judge, and that police had collected CCTV footage from the site. On Sunday, Kolkata Police arrested seven people, ANI reported, including the puja committee secretary and its vice president, and registered a case against the organisers. Adhikari said an announcement by the organisers led to the rush, and that families of two of the dead said whistles blown by private security guards also set people moving.

At least 17 people were killed and about 35 others were injured in a stampede at a Durga Puja pandal in north Kolkata on Saturday evening, as heavy crowds pressed through an exit gate during rain. Reuters reported the death toll on Saturday, citing NDTV. Police said the stampede took place at about 7:40 p.m.

The crush happened at the Sarada Park pandal in Chorbagan, home of the Chorbagan Sarbojanin Durga Puja, in the Girish Park police station area. "A stampede occurred at the exit gate of the Sarada Park (Chor Bagan) Puja Pandal in the Girish Park Police Station area due to heavy crowds of pandal visitors during rain," police said in a statement carried by the ANI news agency. Saturday was Saptami, one of the busiest days of Durga Puja, when crowds move through the city from one decorated pandal to the next until late at night.

Queues over an hour long

Hundreds of people had come to the Chorbagan pandal, a community puja that has drawn visitors for decades, to see the idol of the goddess Durga. It was raining, and visitors stood in long queues to get in. One witness said the wait to reach the idol was taking more than an hour, and getting out was just as hard. "The area was narrow, and the lines of people waiting to come out were long," the witness said.

Some early reports suggested that part of the exit gate structure gave way as people pushed forward in the rain. Police have not confirmed what set off the crush, and the organisers have been summoned to the police station to explain what happened.

35 people taken to one hospital

Police closed the pandal to visitors after the stampede and said about 35 injured people were rescued and taken to the Medical College Hospital in Kolkata. Sources in the northern division of Kolkata Police said the dead included 13 women and one child. Police issued a toll free helpline, 18003455678, for families looking for relatives who had not come home. Disaster management staff were sent to the site.

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari and Chief Secretary Manoj Agarwal went to the hospital to check on the treatment of the injured, and the state health minister also visited. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the stampede "extremely distressing" in a post on X. "My thoughts are with those who have lost their loved ones. May the injured recover at the earliest," he said. Home Minister Amit Shah said he had cancelled his programmes in West Bengal planned for Sunday and would visit the injured in hospital instead. Former chief minister Mamata Banerjee said she was deeply shocked and saddened by the stampede and prayed for the recovery of the injured.

Durga Puja is the biggest festival of the year in West Bengal, and its community pandals draw very large crowds on the peak evenings of Saptami, Ashtami and Navami. Managing those crowds in narrow lanes, often in rain, is a standing test for police and puja committees every year. On Saturday night in Chorbagan, that test ended in the worst way.