Honour the dead by ending stampedes at public places

I vividly recall that day in 1982 when tragedy struck in the Qutb Minar.

- Narayani Gupta

An excited party of schoolchildren was running down the winding stairs, someone stumbled, and there was a cascade of children. Since then, the Minar's door has been locked, and we have been denied that spectacular view from the balcony of the first floor.

After the horror of the night of February 15, 2025, should New Delhi Railway Station be locked for 40 years? Newspaper reports have a weakness for the word "unprecedented". But it is not appropriate for this incident - not many days ago, there was a precedent of a stampede at Prayagraj. That was at a ghat, this at a station full of people headed for that ghat. Slithery sand in the first, dysfunctional escalators and a lack of clear announcements in the second.

Another memory -- my great sense of anxiety on a December night in 1998, when at New Delhi Station a change in platforms was announced with 10 minutes for the arrival of the train, and I had to negotiate those terrible stairs with my poor husband who had a weak leg. Multiply that situation a hundred-fold, add "unreserved" tickets and lack of clarity of train names.