ANANDPUR SAHIB, India, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Local government officials didn't bother to separate the living from the dead in the aftermath of Sunday's India shrine stampede, witnesses say.
The state of Himachal Pradesh and local police in the Bilaspur district were accused of callousness towards the victims of the stampede at the Naina Devi shrine, allegedly piling victims in trucks without medical confirmation they were all dead, the Times of India reported Wednesday.
Witnesses say rather than finding doctors, police asked food vendors to identify which people were dead. The newspaper quoted a 19-year-old man who said he woke up in an Anandpur Sahib hospital laid out among the bodies of the 146 fatalities awaiting post-mortem examinations.
A cab driver who ferried bodies to Anandpur Sahib told the Times: "When (officials) put the bodies in my vehicle I found some of them breathing. A few died on their way to hospital. Had there been doctors at the accident spot many would have survived as they were unconscious merely from suffocation."
Officials, however, told the newspaper there were so many trampling victims that the first priority was to get them to hospital as quickly as possible.
