New Delhi (dpa) – At least 12 people, including four women, died Saturday in a stampede during a religious ceremony of a Muslim sect in central India, officials said. The accident occurred at Hussain Tekri, in Madhya Pradesh's Ratlam district, about 300 kilometres west of the state capital Bhopal, district official Rajendra Kumar Sharma said. Thousands of people participate in the annual celebration in the area, which takes place 40 days after Muharram, a month of mourning for Muslims. People gathered for the ceremony had to walk through a single gate to the Muslim shrine and a sudden rush of pilgrims led to the stampede, Sharma said. Most of the victims were trampled to death. Deadly stampedes are not unusual at India's religious shrines, which are often located at the end of narrow, steep paths and have poor arrangements for crowd control. At least 104 people died in a stampede during a pilgrimage to the Hindu shrine of Sabarimala in the southern Indian state of Kerala on January 15, 2011. BM
