The Politics of Compensating

Stampede related deaths are common place during pilgrimage all over the world. No amount of administrative measures for safety of pilgrims can be enough.

Recently, there was an incident in Bihar where pilgrims got killed because of their own fatal carelessness. They were crossing railway tracks without checking if some train was approaching and got killed by a passing Express train. The surprised driver did apply breaks but the damage was already done by the time train came to a halt.

Many people were killed and many more injured. The District Administration was rendered 'helpless' due to floods in that area.

What followed the 'accident' was a complete mayhem - corpses, piles of injured and a crowd of rogues that went on attacking the locomotive staff, the train and the innocent passengers. The scenario for the passengers was horrifying - they had no clue why they were being attacked! They could not run - there wasn't any 'anywhere' to run to - the Geography of the area inundated by floods was unknown to them. 

And what was the composition of the crowd - largely pilgrims and surviving companions/relatives of the pilgrims and other locals. 

The crowd kept terrorising passengers for many hours - till the Administration arrived. 

But, the most mind-boggling and preposterous step was by the Bihar State - it announced compensation to the surviving companions/relatives of the dead & injured - the very people who caused the 'accident' and terrorised the innocent passengers of the train and destroyed State/Railway property!