A 57-year-old devotee from Cuttack died in a crowd while pulling a chariot during the Bahuda Yatra in Odisha temple town of Puri on Friday, police said.
Police officers said that the deceased, identified as Abhiram Das, complained of shortness of breath while pulling the Darpadalan chariot of Goddess Subhadra and collapsed amidst a huge crowd gathered on the Grand Road (Bada Danda).
Volunteers, their colleagues and Railway Protection Force personnel took Das to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared him dead on arrival.
Officers said initial findings indicate that Das died due to suffocation. His body was sent for autopsy, and his family was notified.
Officers said several other worshipers fell ill during the procession and were taken to hospital.
Read also:Stampede-like situation during Jagannath Rath Yatra in Puri kills two people and sends nearly 100 to hospital
The death comes just over a week after three devotees were killed during the main Rath Yatra procession on July 16, when huge crowds gathered in Puri to pull the three chariots of Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Goddess Subhadra.
Devotees thronged the temple town of Odisha on July 16 to celebrate the annual Rath Yatra despite rain and flooded streets after more than 200 mm of rain fell in Puri in the past 45 hours.
The Odisha government had earlier confirmed the deaths of two of them, saying an unidentified 60-year-old man died of suffocation while another devotee, Anil Das from Cuttack, suffered a cardiac arrest. The state government attributed the two deaths to a sudden increase in crowds and not to a stampede.
The Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) later confirmed a third death after Ashok Supari Raikar, a devotee from Mumbai who contracted the disease during the Rath Yatra, died while undergoing treatment at the Puri District Headquarters Hospital on July 16.
