Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das has ordered an inquiry into the death of 11 devotees in the stampede in Deoghar today.

“The inquiry is going to find out the reason of the stampede”,said a senior official at the state secretariat in Ranchi.

Eye witness reports said that the stampede took place at Belabagan,nearly 10-11 K.M from Deoghar at 4.30 A.M.on Monday.”The stampede was the result of a stupid work of the Dumka-Deoghar dystrict administration.With a view to provide a road free from holes and potholes,it had got them filled up through the contractor”,said a resident of Belabagan..

The contractor had put up sands over these holes and potholes.At one place,the sand was not pressed hard enough to make the sand soaked road bear the weight of thousands of devotees.As a result,when these barefeet devotees were walking and moving towards Deoghar,one of them slipped and fell down after his leg got caught into the sand driven potholed road.This caused the stampede”,said Munish Murmu,an eye witness.

“If the work carried out by officials and contractors is well planned and executed,huge loses can be prevented and Jharkhand can march ahead.But the sad thing is this does not happen and the people suffer untold miseries mainly because we are living in the contractor driven administrative system”,fumes a school teacher.

Apart from the death of 11 devotees,50 devotees were injured.”Four of them were serious”,said a report.Deoghar Deputy Commissioner Amit Kumar and its SP P.Murugan supervised by Additional Secretary,Incharge of the Department of Home,NN Pandey and the CM’s Principal Secretary Sanjay Kumar were busy maintaining peace at Deoghar.

The CM Raghbar Das has announced a package of compensation -Rs two lakh to the family of each deceased and Rs 50,000 to each injured.