Even on Sundays, the main campus of the Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat) at Kalamassery is a boisterous and spirited place where students, fitness freaks, sports enthusiasts, and morning walkers of all age groups spend time under the massive canopy of trees.
But, the character of the campus changed overnight. This Sunday, people talked in hushed tones as they gathered at different spots near the open air stage where a tragic stampede claimed the lives of four persons, including three Cusat students, on Saturday evening during a tech festival.
The enormity of the tragedy was evident in the way the students gathered in front of the open air stage on Sunday morning. They had no words to express their sorrow as they waited for the bodies to arrive.
“There was a massive crowd of students and people from neighbouring areas in front of the stage,” said an M.Tech student, recalling the fateful evening. Usually, the gates to the gallery were kept open much ahead of the programme, he added. However, on Saturday, they were open for a while, and closed later. When the gates were reopened, the programme was about to begin, and the crowd rushed inside, leading to a melee, made more complicated by the steep nature of the steps that led to the gallery, he said.
The hushed conversations died down once the bodies were brought to the School of Engineering hall for the students and the public to pay their last respects. Before the bodies arrived about 9.45 a.m., hundreds of students had lined up along the roads. They moved forward as the bodies were taken to the hall.
A group of police officers guarded the entrance and let in people, in batches of 20 or 30. Students burst into tears, some clung to their friends and others looked away to hide their tears. The students continued to pour in till about 12 noon. The bodies were then wrapped carefully in caskets to be taken to the hometowns of the deceased. Most students lingered on as the vehicles carrying the bodies moved out of the campus.
