At least 63 people, including women and children, were killed in a stampede at a temple in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh today, police said.
Dozens of people were also injured when thousands of people crowded into the compound of a temple in Kunda, a small town some 650km southeast of Delhi. Of the dead, 26 were women and 37 children, police said.
Some people were crushed to death under the gate, leading to panic, and as hundreds of people tried to escape through a narrow passage, many tripped and came under the feet of the rushing crowd.
"There was a huge gathering at an ashram of Kripalu Maharaj and there was a stampede as people tried to get to food stalls," local administration official Vansh Gopal Maurya.
Maharaj's charitable trust has set up schools, temples, and hospitals and runs five large ashrams or hermitages, including one in the US.
Residents in Kunda village, where the temple is located, helped police carry the injured to nearby hospitals, police said.
In India, stampedes are relatively common at temples, where thousands of people gather to pray during festivals.
In September 2008, at least 147 people died at a Hindu temple in Jodhpur in the western state of Rajasthan. A month earlier 145 people, including 30 children, died in Himachal Pradesh, in India's north, as a landslide prompted pilgrims to flee a hilltop shrine.
Agencies