Wednesday, January 26 2005 09:40 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Wai (Satara, Maharashtra): The coconut-breaking ritual at the door of the Mandradevi temple led to a chain of events that resulted into the stampede leading to one of the worst disasters in Maharashtra killing over 300 pilgrims and injuring scores of others, a senior police official from Satara said.

Suprintendent of Police C P Kumbhar said that the coconut-breaking ceremony caused the ground outside the temple doors to become wet and slippery which resulted into some of the pilgrims, who were dancing over there with the goddess' idol over their heads, to fall and getting trampled over by the uncontrolled incoming hordes of devotees.

Kumbhar said that the initial news of people getting trampled over caused consternation amongst the devotees waiting for their turn, who turned violent and started torching the shops and pandals on the narrow route leading to the temple on a hillock.

The resultant fire caused the gas cylinders, used for cooking as well as lighting, to explode which further created panic among the huge queue of worshippers.

"This led to a huge stampede leading to the disaster," Kumbhar said.

Another reason for stampede was given as a short circuit in the electrical installation near the temple, which caused an explosion on the adjacent transformer with a loud bang that, scared the devotees.

Kumbhar said that the injured have been taken to hospitals in Wai and Satara. "We sent six buses full of injured to the hospitals," he said while expressing fears that the toll may go up.

The stampede occurred at 14:00 hrs (IST).

He could not hazard a guess on the number of injured pointing out the magnitude of the disaster.

Meanwhile, the district administration has decided to do away with the mandatory post-mortem of the victims and has decided to hand over the bodies to their relatives.

"We have taken permission from the District Magistrate to hand over the bodies without conducting post-mortem," Kumbhar said.

The Government has announced an ex-gratia of Rs one lakh to the next kin of those killed and Rs 25,000 to those seriously injured in the incident. Those suffered minor injuries would be paid Rs 10,000, the State Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh announced in Wai after visiting the injured t the hospital.