‘Within seconds, five of them stopped breathing': eye witness recounts midnight tragedy in Ramanthapur

The Hindu

2 days ago

It was close to midnight on Sunday, August 17 when the streets of Ramanthapur's RTC Colony, slick from the drizzle that was still falling, began to quieten after nearly five hours of Janmashtami celebrations. The colony's first Krishna Shobha Yatra was winding down, with devotees leading the chariot back to Yadava Sangam Function Hall in Gokhale Nagar, where it had begun earlier in the evening.
The procession had set out from the function hall and made its way 750 metres to the Shivalayam temple in Old Ramanthapur for prayers around 7 p.m. By about 11.50 p.m., as devotees retraced the route to return the chariot and decorations, tragedy struck near a T-junction about a hundred metres from the Ayyappa Swamy Temple.
The Mahindra Gypsy that had been pulling the metal chariot ran out of fuel, leaving a group of men to haul it forward. Atop the metal chariot stood over a six-foot idol of lord Krishna, stretching the structure to nearly nine feet. Above the narrow bylane, lined with homes and small shops on both sides, a thick cluster of black wires sagged low across the road.
'There must have been at least 200 to 300 people from in and around Ramanthapur who joined the programme,' recalled Narsimha Reddy, a long-time resident who had been part of the procession. 'By the end, the Gypsy carrying the chariot ran out of diesel, so about 20 of us were pulling it with iron rods attached in front. None of us realised the wires above were touching it.'
What followed was over in moments. The frame brushed against a live wire. 'We were pulling the rath when there was a brief spark and everyone fell down,' Reddy said. 'Within seconds, five of them stopped breathing.'
The same colony where only minutes earlier young men had walked by singing and celebrating was suddenly strewn with bodies. Some collapsed where they stood, others convulsed on the wet road. Survivors and bystanders tried desperately to revive them with CPR and shouted for medical help as chaos gripped the area.
All the men had come dressed alike in yellow turbans and scarves, the attire chosen for the procession. The only reminders now are the photos they clicked during the procession, shared among grieving friends and families.
In the panic that followed, the chariot was abandoned in the colony as locals rushed the injured to a private hospital in the vicinity, with one shifted later to Osmania General Hospital.
Reddy alleged negligence by the power authorities. 'The main service wire and the cable were hanging entangled. This was an electrical fault. In the morning, they even cut off the cable wire and joined the service wires, as if to leave no proof of what caused it,' he said.
'All of them were breadwinners of their families. Their homes are ruined because of someone else's negligence,' Reddy added bitterly.
For many in the colony, the tragedy was all the more shocking because this was the first time a Shobha Yatra for Krishna Janmashtami had been organised. In the past, locals explained, the celebrations were limited to Utti or Utsalovam, where clay pots filled with butter or sweets are suspended and broken by climbing human pyramids.
'I feel like I narrowly escaped it,' said Abhi Kashyap, a resident of Gokhale Nagar for the past 20 years and a long-time companion of the group. 'My friends had asked me to join, but I was only returning from my hometown in Karimnagar. If I had been here, I might have been with them.'
By morning, police vehicles and grieving relatives filled the road where the accident occurred. The idol had been taken away by its renters around 3 a.m., but the abandoned chariot still stood.
A local medical shop owner, who witnessed the aftermath, pointed to a chopped wire dangling near the T-junction, just steps from his shop. 'It is very unfortunate. In seconds, five fit men died. These wires have been hanging low for a while now, I was always afraid something could happen,' he said.
Meanwhile, in Old Ramanthapur's homes, where Janmashtami excitement lingered until last night, families are now preparing for funerals.