More than 300 Hindu pilgrims were trampled to death and 200 injured on Tuesday in a stampede at a religious festival in western India, police said. Additional Director General of Police V.N. Deshmukh said most of the dead were women and children who were jammed into a hill-top temple and narrow access road. "Over 300 were killed and four buses full of injured people have been sent to various local hospitals in the district of Satara," Deshmukh in Bombay told AFP.
He warned the death and injury toll was expected to go up as the bodies of the dead and injured arrived at hospitals in Satara district, 300 kilometres (180 miles) south of Bombay, a correspondent reported.
The police official said 300,000 to 400,000 people had gathered at the temple site for the sighting of the full moon Tuesday night.
Varying reasons were given for the cause of the midday stampede, which was the deadliest in years at a religious event in India where sometimes millions of people mass in perilous safety conditions.
Deshmukh said the crush was triggered by a clash between pilgrims and a few shopkeepers that was followed by a gas cylinder blast which caused more panic.
"The situation was aggravated by the fact there were thousands of pilgrims coming out of the temple and thousands trying to get into the temple," he said.
Another witness said the stampede appeared to have been caused by an overhead electric cable that was believed to have fallen on some pilgrims.
"Apparently an overhead electric cable hit some people and some people got caught in it. That created panic and people started running, some trampling on others," said Sanjay Mistry, a shopkeeper who was one of the pilgrims.
"There was a lot of chaos and cries of 'many people are dead'.
"People got suffocated in the crush," Mistry said. "Bodies are still lying there."
The tragedy occurred during the annual pilgrimage to the Mandhradevi temple near the town of Wai in Satara district. The hillside temple is dedicated to the Hindu goddess Mandhradevi, Jadhav said.
Police said chaos followed the stampede.
"Many started rioting and burning and looting makeshift shops along the route up to the temple," a policeman told AFP by telephone from Satara town, in the district of the same name where the temple is located.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was en route to the scene of the stampede.
Last April, 21 women died in a stampede at a birthday rally for a regional political leader in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh state, when people surged forward for the handout of free saris.
Two years ago, at least 39 died when pilgrims panicked on the banks of a sacred river north-east of Bombay. In January 1999, more than 50 people died in southern India during a stampede at a Hindu pilgrimage site at the Sabarimala shrine in Kerala while thousands watched what they believed to be a celestial light.
In 1954, some 800 were reported to have been killed in the northern city of Allahabad.