00:00And that too, in a pandal which is famous, which according to, as we were speaking to Indrajeet Kundu, who
00:11is now back with us, let's cut across straight to him.
00:14Indrajeet, I was just trying to explain that how year after year, these puja pandals are seeing more and more
00:21people coming in to celebrate the culture, to enjoy that evening, to celebrate the joyous moment.
00:28And so clearly the government and the administration needs to scale up their efforts as well, according to the scaling
00:35up of these pujas in the crowd.
00:38Well, clearly the government will have to, you know, scale things up.
00:42And now that this incident has taken place, as I said, Anjali, this is unprecedented.
00:47We haven't heard of such an incident in the recent history of, you know, Durga Puja celebrations.
00:55I mean, the only incident that comes to my mind is one happened a few years back at the Deshupriyo
01:00Park, where there was a stampede-like situation.
01:03But fortunately, nobody died.
01:05So there was no casualty.
01:06But this one, it comes in as a huge shock.
01:09The mood, of course, with people, the images have gone viral on social media of the incident that took place
01:16earlier this evening.
01:17The mood is, of course, very, very somber.
01:19As I said, Durga Puja is the biggest festival in Kolkata, in Bengal, and the festival in Calcutta, the festivities
01:26in Calcutta, is something that people come from across India to celebrate, to take part in.
01:33It is a UNESCO world heritage.
01:37It has been given the tag of an intangible cultural heritage.
01:42So there is a lot of buzz about Kolkata's Durga Puja every year, and the entire city becomes a huge
01:49canvas for artwork.
01:50And there is always a competition between Durga Puja committees and pandals.
01:57There are various awards that are given to these Durga Pujas for best creativity, for even the audience, the amount
02:05of crowd that they can gather.
02:07And it also, you know, the more crowd you gather, the better, you know, advertisements you get from various companies.
02:14And that's how the pujas can sustain and becomes more grander with each passing year.
02:21The Chor Bagan Durga Puja was started in 1936.
02:25It's about 90 years old.
02:27So as I said, you can imagine this is the by lane from Central Avenue.
02:32And then you have a narrower lane approaching the Durga Puja.
02:36So it's a 90-year-old puja.
02:38So the administration will have to take, you know, put in place systems based on its venue.
02:46You can't cancel or you can't stop the puja.
02:49So, therefore, you know, all the reality on the ground that it's located on a narrow by lane on Central
02:59Avenue is something that must have been taken care of by the government.
03:04And accordingly, you know, all things were put in place.
03:10But clearly, that wasn't enough is what we do see because this incident has now taken place.
03:16Now, once there is a proper investigation, only then we would be able to know as to what triggered this
03:22stampede.
03:22But the fact of the matter remains that this is for the first time we've seen a huge incident like
03:29this during Durga Puja celebrations in Kolkata.
03:31In my, you know, memory, I can't recall such an incident taking place.
03:36And, you know, 17 casualties right now, 35 people injured is something that would set a very somber tone to
03:45Durga Puja festivities this year in Bengal.
03:48I will once again show you the visuals at this place because the Pandal is out of bounds for people
03:55who want to watch.
03:56You can see the volunteers out here.
04:00These are Kolkata police civic volunteers.
04:03These are Kolkata police civic volunteers who are manning the gate along with Kolkata police personnel in huge number.
04:11They have been deployed now in huge number.
04:12And this is the lane, the very narrow lane that leads to the Chorbagan, Sharbo Turin, Durga Puja.
04:20I will show you the placard, one of the advertisements of the Durga Puja.
04:24This is Chorbagan, Sharbo Turin, and it was established in 1936.
04:30So 90-year-old Durga Puja, never in its history, even for, not just Kolkata and the Durga Puja, you
04:39know, there are thousands of Durga Pujas in Kolkata, not just Kolkata.
04:43But even for this Puja, this is rare.
04:45We haven't heard of such an incident at Chorbagan earlier.
04:48This Puja, of course, has come into provenance in recent years.
04:52As I said, every Durga Puja committee, they work year-round.
04:57You know, it's a huge creative process.
04:59They hire artists from freshly out of the art colleges to create themes, to create pandals that will give them
05:08more eyeballs.
05:09And in recent past, in the past five years, Chorbagan has really hit the headline.
05:14They have got multiple awards.
05:16Right. Do stay on with us, Indrajeet.
