A day after over 121 people were killed in a stampede in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras, doubts are being raised about the satsang organized by self-styled guru Bhole Baba aka Narayan Saakar Hari, the congregation to which the victims belonged.
When Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath learned of the stampede, he urged officials to rush to the scene and help those in need.
Who is Bhole Baba?
Bhole Baba is from Bahadur village, in the Patiali tehsil of Etah district. He claims to be a former Intelligence Bureau employee.
He supposedly quit his government position 26 years ago to start delivering religious speeches. Today, he has millions of followers throughout India, including western Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Delhi.
Notably, unlike many modern religious figures, Bhole Baba avoids social media and does not have any official accounts on any site. His followers claim that he has a significant grassroots influence.
Bhole Baba’s events are held every Tuesday in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, and attract thousands of people. During these gatherings, volunteers make sure that devotees have everything they need, including food and drinks.
Also read: Stampede at religious event in UP’s Hathras kills 27; CM Yogi directs action
Suraj Pal to Narayan Hari
According to a source, he claimed to live in a hut in his hamlet and travel throughout Uttar Pradesh to preach. Narayan Hari also has a big following in the neighboring states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
Unlike other self-proclaimed godmen, Narayan Hari is pictured wearing a white suit and tie or a modest kurta pajama, accompanied by his wife Prem Bati. He also states that any money offered to him by followers during his satsangs is distributed among them rather than kept.
Hathras Stampede
Officials stated the area where the Hathras stampede occurred was too tiny to accommodate the crowd that had assembled on Tuesday afternoon.
After the’satsang’, when Narayan Saakar Hari was leaving, his devotees rushed to collect dust from his car’s tyre trail. This prompted a stampede, in which hundreds of people were trampled.
His attendants, known as ‘sevadars’, blocked the crowd from approaching the ‘godman’, and the surging crowds fell on each other, suffocating those below, according to officials.
