Four people were killed and more than sixty injured in a stampede during a music festival at a university in the Indian state of Kerala on Saturday when a crowd rushed inside to seek shelter from the rain, Indian media reported.
Following the tragedy, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan held an emergency meeting at a government guesthouse in Kozhikode on Sunday and expressed his condolences for the deaths of the students.
Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Ajith Kumar said: ''Because of the sudden rain, people who were at the construction sites tried to go inside. So suddenly people who were on the steps fell and people walked over them... Four people were taken to hospital dead and another four were seriously injured.''
According to a news report, more than 60 people were hospitalised after the incident.
The annual festival at the Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat) ended in a stampede on Saturday night, leaving at least four students dead and many others injured. The Kerala government announced on Sunday that it would set up a committee of experts to investigate the incident.
A three-member commission of inquiry will look into the incident and come up with guidelines on security measures to be taken when such programmes are held on campuses, Kerala Education Minister R Bindu shared.
The Kerala education minister added that one of the commission's tasks would be to draw up guidelines for safety measures to be taken when holding events with large numbers of people on campus. The Education Minister also said that these guidelines would be distributed to students across the state to prevent similar incidents in the future.