Kolkata Police has directed Kali Puja organisers to prevent visitors from entering pandals to take shelter from rain, making weather-related crowd surges a central focus of safety planning after the Chorebagan stampede killed 19 people and injured at least 25 others.
The instruction was issued at a meeting with Kali Puja organisers at Dhana Dhanya Auditorium in Alipore, attended by Kolkata Police commissioner Ajay Nand. An officer who attended the meeting said visitors should not be allowed to rush into pandals during rainfall, after people allegedly moved towards a covered area during rain at Chorebagan on October 17, Saptami, triggering a stampede.
“Pandals cannot be treated as shelters from rain,” the officer said, according to the report. Police said organisers would have to regulate entry and prevent sudden influxes of visitors during adverse weather conditions. The directive places responsibility on organisers to manage how crowds move around covered structures rather than allowing rain-driven surges to build at entrances and inside pandals.
Local police stations have been asked to inspect major pandals in their jurisdictions before Kali Puja. The inspections will examine crowd-management arrangements, entry and exit routes and other safety measures, the report said. Police are likely to begin checking pandals from Tuesday.
For very large pandals, an inspection by the Public Works Department has been recommended. A police officer said the department should assess structural and other safety aspects. The requirement adds an engineering and public-safety review to the police inspections, particularly for larger temporary structures expected to attract substantial crowds.
Organisers have also been instructed to ensure that exit gates are wider than entry points. The arrangement is intended to support the movement of people out of pandals and reduce congestion where incoming and outgoing visitors could otherwise converge. The directions follow the authorities’ stated focus on lessons from the Chorebagan crowd surge.
The police meeting also reiterated restrictions on fireworks. Only green firecrackers will be permitted, and their use will be limited to the 8pm-to-10pm window. The restrictions form part of the wider set of instructions issued to organisers ahead of the festival.
The Chorebagan incident has made the interaction between weather, temporary structures and crowd movement a specific operational concern for Kolkata’s festival authorities. In the latest directions, police have linked rain sheltering, entry control, gate widths and inspection of pandals to the broader effort to prevent another sudden concentration of visitors.
The next step identified by the police is the inspection of pandals by local stations, with public works checks recommended for very large structures. Officials said the lessons from the stampede would remain central to Kali Puja safety planning.
