Allahabad:
Angry relatives of those who were crushed in a stampede at the Allahabad railway station last evening surrounded a top city official today at a hospital mortuary, complaining that they were being charged exorbitantly for cloth to cover the dead and for ambulances.
Tragedy, the relatives claim, has been compounded by negligence and the insensitivity of officials. The Swaroop Rani hospital, where they were asked to pay Rs 1200 each for cloth, had also asked them to pay fare for ambulances to take away bodies, they alleged.
Allahabad Commissioner Devesh Chaturvedi tried to pacify the people and assured them that the administration would send more ambulances.
Thirty six people have died and many were injured in the stampede on the stairs of a footbridge between platform 5 and 6 of the railway station, where lakhs of people had gathered to return home after visiting the Maha Kumbh mela.
Witnesses say there was gross mismanagement at the station. Victims like eight-year-old Muskaan, died waiting for medical help to reach them. There was only one doctor at the station to attend to the injured after the stampede.