A nail pierced my daughter’s head: Father’s heartbreaking loss in Delhi stampede
‘We were climbing up the stairs — just six more steps — when my daughter got stuck’
New Delhi: Seven-year-old Anjali never made it to the Maha Kumbh. The child, full of excitement for the pilgrimage, became one of the 18 lives lost in the stampede at New Delhi Railway Station on Saturday night.
“Meri ladki ke kila ghus gaya (a nail pierced my daughter’s head),” her father, Opil Singh, said, his voice breaking as he recalled the horrific moment. His family had a confirmed ticket to Prayagraj but never imagined their journey would end in tragedy.
Singh had sensed trouble early. “We got down from platform number 14, but seeing the crowd, we started coming back. I told my family, ‘There are too many people, let’s go home. We shouldn’t take the children along,’” he told NDTV. But by then, the chaos had already begun.
As the family tried to leave, disaster struck. “We were climbing up the stairs — just six more steps — when my daughter got stuck in the middle. Suddenly, 5,000-6,000 people started rushing down. People were falling over each other. My daughter was trapped,” he said, gesturing to his forehead to show where a nail had pierced her skull. “The blood clotted inside. Her whole face turned black.”
The Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest religious gathering, draws tens of millions of devotees to Prayagraj every 12 years. The ongoing event has already seen massive crowds, but poor crowd control at the railway station turned a spiritual journey into a nightmare for many.
Singh’s grief is shared by several families who lost their loved ones in the stampede. Women and children were among the worst affected, crushed in the relentless surge of bodies. While officials have launched an inquiry, for those like Singh, no explanation can bring back what was lost.
For his daughter, the pilgrimage ended before it even began.
