India : Stampede Cover-up at New Delhi Railway Station by Indian Government
- Vineet Malik
- Feb 22
- 4 min read
By Vineet Malik | February 22, 2025 | India | @vineetmalik1
The Government of India wants to destroy the evidence in the form of news reports covered during a stampede, occurred on platform number 14 at the New Delhi Railway Station on 15 February that led to the killing of 18 people including three children and many injured
More than 280 Newsrooms along with X face Wrath of Indian Government
The Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw instead of accepting his responsibility for the mishap has issued notice to the social media platform previously Twitter, now X on 17 February to remove more than 280 video links/reports with a compliance deadline of 36 hours.
The notice issued by the Ministry of Railways to X says that the “videos might create public unrest and disrupt railway operations in the present scenario of huge train traffic.”
Several eyewitnesses and media reports says that the incident took place due to mismanagement by the Railway authorities.
Many newsrooms are also targeted and directed to takedown the video links on a premise of ‘sensitive and disturbing visuals showing deceased individuals’.
Stampede Incident occurred at New Delhi Railway Station around 10 pm on 15 February
A huge crowd arrived at the New Delhi Railway Station to board a special train bound for Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh state where, the ‘Maha Kumbh’ festival of confluence of three holy rivers; Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati - Triveni Sangam has been hosted since mid January.
It is believed that a holy dip at the sacred confluence washes away sins. More than 500M people from across the globe have so far participated in the festival that comes after 144 years.
Several news reports says that a wrong platform announcement for a delayed special train caused confusion that led to a stampede and people ran helter-skelter in a desperation to somehow reserve a seat in the coach.
A news reporter Saumya Raj from ‘Molitics’ was harassed and intimidated by the Railway officials. The videos were shared by the news reporter on X that generated huge traffic and led to condemnation of the Railway authorities.
Media was not given access to enter Lok Nayak Hospital and Mortuary where injured and dead were transferred. The Police and Para Military Forces were deployed outside the hospital in large numbers.
The Railway authorities also faced a flak for misleading the public through a tweet by calling the mishap as a rumour.
Later, an intensive clean-up exercise was conducted on the railway platform to remove the belongings of dead and injured.
Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in Delhi High Court (HC)
The Delhi HC on Thursday slammed the Railway authorities by expressing its concern about crowd mismanagement and questioned on tickets sold in excess of capacity in the train coaches. The Court issued directions to submit an affidavit along with measures to control the situation.
It is alleged that, more than 1500 train tickets were sold per hour by the Indian Railways.
Conduct of the Indian Government
Instead of looking into the complete failure of Railway authorities, the government is now targeting social media platform with a motive to conceal the news from reaching the masses and destroying the video evidence in the form of news reports.
The Indian government by issuing directions to remove the media links from public domain has alleged to have committed a deliberate attempt to blindfold the public and miserably failed to be held accountable.
Attempt to Silence Social Media and Newsrooms in India
The Ministry of Railways is trying to impede the 'People's Right to Know' by censoring the social media platform X and several other newsrooms.
India has been facing a grave issue of media censorship and harassment of journalists after the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi came into power in 2014.
An award-winning and most respected journalist Ravish Kumar with more than 12.5M followers on YouTube says “These are unprecedented times, that people will get killed in such mishaps and their information will not even reach the public. We are living in this day and age when people will be obscured into darkness”, added Kumar.
India’s press freedom has rapidly declined in the recent past. It is ranked 159 out of the 180 nations in the 2024 edition of the press freedom index, released by Reporters Without Borders.
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