Navi Mumbai: Eleven dead, over 100 suffocate in heat at Maharashtra Bhushan award ceremony

Union Home Minister Amit Shah confers the Maharashtra Bhushan Award 2022 on social worker and reformer ‘Nirupankar’ Dattatreya Narayan Dharmadhikari, known as Appasaheb Dharmadhikari, at Kharghar, on Sunday. Pic/PTI

Eleven people have died due to heatstroke and approximately 150 reported dizziness and exhaustion in Kharghar on Sunday, where Union Home Minister Amit Shah was addressing a large gathering of people at the Maharashtra Bhushan award ceremony for esteemed social activist Dattatray Narayan Dharmadhikari, also known as Appasaheb Dharmadhikari. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadanvis were also in attendance.

On visiting a Navi Mumbai hospital on Sunday night when eight deaths were initially confirmed. Calling them unfortunate and painful, Shinde said: "I have met the patients and advised doctors to give the best of treatment. The primary cause of death and illness is sunstroke. Some 50 people were admitted at MGM Hospital and half of them have been discharged after treatment."

Shinde said he would not respond to the political allegations, particularly the Congress' demand that the government be booked for causing deaths. "Our priority is to treat the patients. A deputy civic commissioner has been put in-charge of coordination between hospitals and patients' kin. The government will do its best," said Shinde, informing that the kin of each of the dead will be given Rs 5 lakh and the treatment cost of patients will be borne by the government.

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State Congress chief spokesperson Atul Londhe slammed the government for being careless holding the event on a day that saw high temperatures. "Don't governments have a weather department that forecasts the temperature? There was no need to hold the event in the summer. The government, which lacks sensitivity and humanity, should be booked for homicide," he said in a statement.

Approximately 8-10 lakh followers of Dharmadhikari had attended the grand function held on a sprawling 306-acre ground in Kharghar. Union Home Minister Amit Shah presented the award, instituted by the Maharashtra government, to Dharmadhikari. The event, for which people had started gathering since morning, began around 11.30 am and went on till around 1 pm. Many of them had arrived on Saturday. According to officials from the Navi Mumbai police, the temperature during the event was around 39-40 degrees Celsius.

Ground was packed

The ground was packed with people and equipped with audio/video facilities for followers of Shree Sadasya (Dharmadhikari's organisation) to witness the function. The seating arrangement for the attendees was made in the open and there was no shade.

Earlier a government official had said 123 people were affected by the sunlight. "A total of 123 people complained of heat-related health ailments, like dehydration during the event. They were immediately referred to the 30 medical booths set up at the venue. Thirteen of the patients, who needed further treatment, were shifted to different private hospitals and the condition of one of them is serious," a revenue department official, who was on duty at the venue, said.

Doctors were deployed

"A total of 30 doctors were deployed at the medical booths that had intensive care unit (ICU) facilities to treat people at the venue," she said.

During the event, Shah said he has never seen such a big presence of lakhs of people to honour a person for his social service. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis were present on the occasion.

Inputs from agencies