How Mymensingh stampede that killed 27 unfolded in moments

It was just before dawn when the wait of more than a thousand people for new clothes started in a narrow alley in Mymensingh.

A buzz of excitement filled the air. 
 
These men, women and children lined up for free Eid clothes – but what scores of them got was shroud over the dead body.

When the three-foot-wide gate of Nurani Jarda factory opened, their attempts to get ahead in the queue by pushing and brawling met with baton charges by the factory’s security guards.
 
In an instant, the Zakat clothes handout tuned into a deadly stampede around 5am on Friday at the town’s Atul Chakravorty Road, near the Mymensingh Municipality office.
 
It would trample at least 27 women and children to death and injure over 50 more.
  
The chewing tobacco factory’s owner, Shamim Talukder, gives Zakat clothes to the poor during Ramadan every year.
 
His people had notified the poor over the past few days over loudspeakers about Friday’s clothes distribution. 
 

Thousands had thronged this alley early on Friday for free Zakat clothes

An eyewitness describes the scenes of the stampede outside the hospital

Locals said they also distributed ‘cards’ among the slum-dwellers inviting them to receive the clothes.

People from slums and other impoverished areas started gathering in front of the four-storey factory and residence of Talukder from midnight.
 
Things got tense after Sehri with the mad rush of crowds building. Many started shouting and demanded that the gate be opened.
 
Jabina Begum from Anandipur village under Mymensingh Sadar Upazila and Mahmuda Khatun from Char Iswardia said the people rushed through a small gate.
 
Faced with the rush, factory employees swung batons, causing the crush.

Physician Fahad Hossain of Mymensingh Medical College and Hospital, where the bodies were sent, said the deaths were caused by suffocation.
 

 

Witnesses and relatives of the dead said the stampede would have not happened had the factory people opened its main entrance.
 
Thana Ghat slum dweller Anwar Begum said factory security guards were trying to tackle the rush by bamboo barriers, “but nothing worked after the gate was opened.” 

Several witnesses said the factory employees tried to disperse the Zakat-seekers by charging baton on them.
 
Kotwali Model Police Station OC Qamrul Islam told bdnews24.com baton-charge might have taken place and the complaints would be looked into.

Mymensingh Superintendent of Police Mainul Haque said: “Those who were giving away Zakat did not inform police of the matter before. Police could not know it as the incident took place before dawn.”
 

Nurani Jarda factory owner Shamim Talukder

Mymensingh Superintendent of Police (SP) Mainul Haque

District Deputy Commissioner Muttakim Billah Faruqi also thinks the factory owners erred by not informing police and public representatives of the Zakat distribution.
 
He said the district administration and religious affairs ministry each would give the family of every deceased Tk 10,000 in financial assistance.
 
Police already arrested eight people including the factory owner, his son Hedayet Hossain Talukder and six others over the incident. They also brought charges of murder against them.
 
The other accused are factory Manager Iqbal Hossain, employees Shamsul Islam and Abdul Hamid, driver ‘Parvez’, and Shamim’s relatives Arman Hossain and Alamgir Hossain.
 
Police headquarters and district administration have constituted two committees to look into the incident.
 
The police probe committee reached Mymensingh at noon and started their work.