18 killed, 50 injured in stampede in Mumbai

Hospital workers carry the dead body of a victim killed in a stampede outside a morgue in Mumbai January 18, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

NEW DELHI - At least 18 people were killed and over 50 others injured in a stampede in Mumbai in the early hours of Saturday, a senior police official said.

"The incident happened at 1: 30 am near the residence of a Muslim spiritual leader in posh Malabar area of the financial capital, where hundreds of people converged from across the country and abroad to pay their last respects to him," he said, on condition of anonymity.

While 18 people died on the spot, those injured have been admitted to a local hospital where the condition of some are said to be serious, the official added.

Local TV channels reported, quoting Mumbai police chief Satyapal Singh as saying, that most of the deaths occurred due to suffocation during the sudden stampede, the exact cause of which is yet to be ascertained by a probe already ordered into the incident.

Singh also accepted lapses on part of the police as the area also houses Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chawan, among top officials and foreign diplomats.

The spiritual leader of Muslim Shia sect Dawoodi Bohra, Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin, passed away Friday, at the age of 102. His body was kept at Saifee Mahal in Mumbai for mourners to pay their last respects.

Many people get killed in stampedes in India every year. In October last year, some 115 people died in a stampede at a Hindu festival in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.