NEW DELHI: The chief organizer of an Indian preacher’s event where a stampede killed 121 people this week surrendered to police on Friday, a lawyer for the preacher said, after police had launched a manhunt.
Devprakash Madhukar was named a key suspect in an initial report registered by police under charges including attempted culpable homicide. Police had announced a reward of 100,000 rupees ($1,200) for information leading to his arrest.
A.P. Singh, lawyer for self-styled godman Bhole Baba, said Madhukar was the main organizer of the Hindu religious event on Tuesday attended by about 250,000 people in a village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. District authorities had permitted an event of only 80,000 people.
“He has surrendered from Delhi. We are not seeking an anticipatory bail,” Singh told reporters. He denied any wrongdoing by the event’s organizers and said Devprakash was getting medical treatment in a hospital after the stampede.
The preacher said on Saturday he was saddened by the incident and his aides would help the injured and families of the deceased.
“I have faith that anyone who created the chaos will not be spared,” he told Indian news agency ANI, in which Reuters has a minority stake.
($1 = 83.47 Indian rupees)
India stampede: main organizer of religious event surrenders to police
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India stampede: main organizer of religious event surrenders to police
Danish general says there are no Chinese or Russian ships near Greenland
- “There are Chinese and Russian vessels in the Arctic Ocean, but not near Greenland,” Major General Soren Andersen said
- He had extended an invitation for the US to join exercises planned on the island this year
NUUK: The head of Denmark’s military Joint Arctic Command said on Friday that there were no Chinese or Russian ships observed near Greenland, despite repeated claims by US President Donald Trump to the contrary.
Trump says Greenland is vital to US security and has not ruled out the use of force to take it. European nations this week sent small numbers of military personnel to the island at Denmark’s request.
“We don’t see any Russian or Chinese vessels around Greenland... there are Chinese and Russian vessels in the Arctic Ocean, but not near Greenland,” Major General Soren Andersen told Reuters.
Speaking on board a Danish warship in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, Andersen said that he had extended an invitation for the United States to join exercises planned on the island this year.
“We had a meeting today with a lot of NATO partners including the US and invited them to participate in this exercise,” said Andersen. When asked if the Americans will join, the general replied “I don’t know that yet.”
Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command enforces sovereignty and conducts surveillance, fisheries inspection and search-and-rescue across Greenland and the Faroe Islands, drawing on patrol vessels, aircraft, helicopters and satellite-based monitoring.
Headquartered in Nuuk, it also fields Greenland’s Sirius dog-sled patrol for long-range land operations and maintains about 150 staff across command, logistics and fixed Arctic stations.
Responding to Trump’s criticism that Denmark does too little to defend Greenland, Copenhagen last year announced a 42 billion Danish crowns ($6.54 billion) Arctic defense package.
