The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday suspended six police and government officers for “negligence” in handling the religious event helmed by Suraj Pal aka Bhole Baba at a village in Hathras where a stampede on July 2 killed 126 people.

The action was taken based on a report submitted by a two-member special investigation team (SIT) that held the local administrative and police officers and the organisers of the satsang responsible for the deaths at Phulrai village under Sikandararaau police station.

Sikandararaau’s sub-divisional magistrate Ravindra Kumar, tehsildar Sushil Kumar, circle officer Anand Kumar, police station head Ashish Kumar, police outpost in-charge of Kachaura Manveer Singh and police outpost in-charge of Pora Brijesh Pandey have been suspended.

The SIT of additional director-general of police (Agra zone) Anupam Kulshreshtha and Aligarh divisional commissioner Navdeep Rinwa did not mention any role of Pal, the self-styled godman who had been blamed for the deaths by the majority of the family members of the victims. The bereaved families had alleged that the Baba, who also calls himself Narayan Saakaar Hari, had fled the spot as his devotees were dying.

However, the state government neither mentioned him in the FIR nor showed any interest in interrogating him.

Eyewitnesses had said that devotees had rushed out of a narrow passageway to touch the ground on which the Baba had walked at the venue after addressing the satsang.

As the devotees were trying to get close to the Baba, the security guards and sevadars (organisers) had violently pushed them back, creating a chaos and prompting them to run helter-skelter, several relatives of victims had claimed. As many of them died after falling into an adjoining nallah, or getting trampled on, the Baba quickly got into his car and left the venue, they alleged.

The Baba had set up area-wise social-religious committees for such programmes and the one involved in organising the event at Phulrai is called the Manav Mangal Milan Committee. A total 11 people of the committee have now been arrested.

Sources said the SIT, which visited the spot and recorded the statement of the government officers, organisers and eyewitnesses on July 2, 3 and 5, had primarily accused the committee for mismanagement and stampede.

“The SIT recorded the statement of 125 people and said that the apprehension of a conspiracy can’t be ruled out,” said a source.

The SIT report is in sharp contrast to the statements that the victims’ family members and the injured gave before the media holding the Baba, his organisers, bodyguards and government officers, including the police, solely responsible for the tragedy.

The Baba and some senior police officers had hinted at a conspiracy even before the preliminary inquiry had started.

“The SIT has said that the local administration and the police gave permission for the satsang without inspecting the venue. The cops on duty didn’t alert their seniors when 2.5 lakh turned up at the venue though permission was obtained for an attendance of 80,000. No police verification of the organisers was done to ascertain whether they were capable of holding such an event. There was no security measure at the spot,” a source in the police said while summarising the report.

Responding to the SIT report, a police officer in Lucknow said: “No government officer can dare deny permission to such a religious congregation in Uttar Pradesh. They will be punished even before the programme is held.”