Ishita Mishra, a reporter with the New Delhi bureau of The Hindu, has written a diary column for the 12th July edition, in which she recounted the traumatic experience of reporting the aftermath of a stampede that occurred on 2nd July in Hathras, U.P.
Ms Mishra writes that the stampede occurred as people rushed out at the end of a religious gathering, known in north India as ‘satsang’. All of those who attended the meeting were women and girls. The death toll was 121.
Within hours of the tragedy, my colleagues and I took a cab to the site. As I walked around, meeting one distraught family after another, I met a man who had lost all the women in his family — mother, wife, and daughter — in the stampede. He uncovered the face of his 10-year-old daughter for us. The sight shook me. Her small body had a Y-shaped incision, her ponytail was soaked in blood, and her eyes had scars. That image of a young life cut short so brutally will perhaps stay with me for a long time.
As reporters, we are expected to be stoic in such instances. Stoicism over a long period of time can make people numb. Perhaps, that is our coping mechanism. […] The wails of men, women, and children were disturbing, but I had to watch it all unfold to report on the tragedy with nuance and sensitivity.
She writes that reporters cannot afford to feel ashamed of asking questions to grieving families. The news of the tragedy must be told with empathy, while holding those responsible accountable, even if the world moves on to another tragedy the next day.
On the streets near hospitals, people stood in long queues, searching for their loved ones who had gone missing. I had two jobs at the time: to note the details of the missing people and to help the kin reach the various hospitals and mortuaries where the injured and dead had been kept, respectively. This too was traumatic: every family member trembled when asked to lift a shroud. The relatives naturally looked exhausted. One woman, who had been searching for her 15-year-old granddaughter, said she had not eaten anything though someone at the site had offered her food. She looked tired and weak.
She writes that villagers who had gathered at the spot helped the media by sharing minute details of the tragedy. They were not afraid of saying that the police and the administration were as responsible for the incident as the organisers. She points out that it was troubling to see prominent people visit the accident site and hospitals only to take photos.
Mishra says journalists cannot be focused on the trauma alone, and need to cover the police investigation, the arrests being made, and the compensation being given to victims’ families. “That is always the hardest part: to leave the grieving families who had cooperated with us while we did our job,” she writes.
While it is a struggle to report on disasters and tragedies, the stories of survivors keep us going. Where there is despair, there is always a ray of hope. One such story was of Pappu Singh from Bharatpur, Rajasthan. His mother and paternal aunt had been missing from the stampede site. The same night I met him, he called me just to share the good news that the two of them had reached home safely. There was so much relief in his voice.
She reflects on the experience to realise that as reporters lurch from one tragedy to the next, there is little time to process the incident or mourn the dead. “As reporters, our primary job is to tell stories and chase deadlines. There is little time to reflect or heal,” she sums up.
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