In the wake of the stampede at the Sri Venkateswara Swamy Temple in Kasibugga of Srikakulam district in Andhra Pradesh, police have registered a First Information Report (FIR) against the temple’s owner and others accusing them of gross negligence. The stampede has claimed 9 lives, with many injured.
As per reports, the FIR has been registered against the temple’s owner Hari Mukunda Panda, the management committee, and the private builder responsible for ongoing construction at the temple premises. Charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) have been invoked against them. The allegations centre on gross negligence, including failure to secure permissions for large gatherings, inadequate crowd management infrastructure, and operating the site amid ongoing construction without safety measures, which directly contributed to the loss of nine lives.
Srikakulam Superintendent of Police K.V. Maheswara Reddy confirmed the FIR was filed following a preliminary investigation, highlighting that the temple, entirely privately managed and not registered under the State Endowments Department, does not have separate entry and exit points, and has a single bottleneck passage with iron railings ill-equipped for the crowd. Moreover, the temple is built on a 12-acre plot still under development.
Reddy said, “It is not a stampede per se. Nine devotees have been killed and two devotees are battling with severe injuries after they fell down from the wall which is connected to the railing. The devotees attempted to escape from the queue in panic after the iron railing was damaged.” He added that sections related to endangering human life through rash and negligent acts (BNS 106) and causing death by negligence (BNS 105) have been applied.
Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said that if the police had been informed in advance, they could have put a crowd management plan in place. “Due to planning, we were able to avoid more loss of life in the cyclone. Sadly, so many people died in the stampede. Those responsible for this incident will be dealt with seriously and taken into custody,” he said.
State’s Endowments Minister Anam Ramanarayana Reddy said, “The capacity of this temple is only up to 2,000 to 3,000 people. Today, being Ekadashi, up to 25,000 people arrived all at once. Arrangements were not made accordingly, nor was information provided to the government. This is the reason for the accident”. He added that the temple is not managed by the state govt’s Endowments Department.
The temple’s octogenarian owner, Hari Mukunda Panda, built the temple as a ‘mini Tirupati’ after he could not have a darshan at the Tirumala temple in the past. A few years ago, he had visited Tirupati for darshan of the Tirumala temple, but due to his illness, security officials had removed him from the queue and asked him to visit the hospital.
Unhappy over the incident, Panda vowed to build a temple dedicated to Tirumala Sri Venkateswara Temple. He funded the ₹10 crore project through personal savings and donations, and modelled his private temple on the world-famous Tirumala temple. He sold off several acres of coconut groves and built the temple on 12 acres of farm land. Panda said that those who cannot afford to go to Tirumala can have darshan at his temple with the same feeling. The temple was inaugurated 4 months ago, however some construction works are still going on.
Now, 80-year-old Hari Mukunda Panda faces FIR over his decision to host the event without regulatory compliance at the incomplete temple. Panda expressed remorse over the incident, but defended the management, saying that daily crowds rarely exceeded 5,000 and they didn’t such massive crowd today.
The Tragic Incident
The horror unfolded around 11:30 a.m. on this auspicious Karthika Ekadashi, as thousands of pilgrims from surrounding villages in the Uddanam region converged on the temple for special rituals. What began as a normal queue for darshan turned catastrophic when the iron railing along a narrow passage, serving as both entry and exit, buckled under the weight of the surging crowd, estimated at 15,000 despite the venue’s designed capacity of just 3,000.
In the ensuing panic, devotees scrambled to flee, with at least 11 scaling a six-foot-high adjoining wall, only to fall to the ground below. Nine devotees lost their lives, eight women and one 13-year-old boy.
