Security personnel outside Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narain Hospital in New Delhi on Sunday.
| Photo Credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

Close to 1.30 a.m. on Sunday, as ambulances and police cars pierced into the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narain (LNJP) Hospital, Kavita Sehgal, 55, frantically ran towards the emergency ward hoping to find her niece, Sangeeta Mallick, who was at the New Delhi railway station at the time of the stampede on Saturday night.

The ward was guarded by security staff. Still, she managed to sneak into it only to find her niece’s body on a stretcher.

Following the stampede, the authorities at the railway station rushed the victims to the LNJP Hospital, from where minors were shifted to Lady Hardinge Hospital and a few others to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.

The corridors of the hospitals remained alive throughout the night with rushed footsteps and wails of relatives.

“The hospital authorities didn’t even bother to inform us that Sangeeta was here. I got to know after seeing her body on the stretcher,” she rued.

Sangeeta, 30, a resident of Rohini, was to board a train to Prayagraj with her colleagues — fellow nurses.

“She had called me at 7 p.m. [Saturday] to inform that she had reached the station,” Ms. Sehgal recalled as she wept inconsolably.

‘Difficult to accept’

At Lady Hardinge Hospital, Sharda Devi, 35, struggled to accept that she had been able to save her 12-year-old daughter, Khushi, but not her 18-year-old niece, Baby Kumari, in the stampede. “We all held each other’s hands firmly. People stepped over my daughter and niece.” She found both of them lying unconscious. “While my daughter was still alive, Baby had stopped breathing,” said Ms. Devi, with plaster on her right hand.

Lying on the next bed, Khushi recalled, “I couldn’t see my mother. I was gasping for air and soon fell unconscious. When I reopened my eyes, I was at the hospital.”

Outside the ward, Opil Singh, 32, is trying to come to terms with the loss of his seven-year-old daughter Riya.

Mr. Opil told The Hindu that after people were evacuated, he found the blood-soaked body of his daughter on the platform.

His uncle, Kapil Singh, who was at the station too but was saved, alleged that railway police officials were of no help. “There were no [railway] police officials to rescue us. We took an auto to reach the hospital. We lost our slippers, wallets, and phones during the stampede,” he complained.

Search continues

While some families found solace after finding their missing members, for 30-year-old Sujit, a resident of Burari, the hunt to trace his sister and mother is on. “Neither the hospital authorities nor the police are telling us if my sister and mother are injured or dead. They are just misguiding us,” he said.

“We have searched RML, Lady Hardinge and LNJP hospitals, but are yet to find them,” he said.