Madhya Pradesh: Over 1,000 Injured, Including 5-Year-Old Child, in Annual Stone-Pelting Festival

Bhopal: A centuries-old tradition, called ‘Gotmar Fair’, rooted in a mythological love story resulted in injuries to 1321 people, including a five-year-old child, of two riverside villages in Madhya Pradesh’s Pandhurna district, on Friday.

The annual festival, a unique stone pelting sports event, was held on the banks of the Jam River on ‘Bhadrapada Amavasya’, falling on Friday, amid deployment of heavy police forces as well as medical personnel and ambulances to carry people, injured on the occasion, to the hospital.

The fair, linked to the mythological tale on the killing of two young lovers, saw residents of Pandhurna and Sawargaon, the riverside villages facing each other, indulge in ritualistic battle of stones.

The festival kicked off early on Friday morning after the residents of both the villages performed puja at the local Chandi Mata Temple and then carried a flag tied to a log in a procession to fix it in the middle of the river.

The residents of the two villages compete with each other to take out the flag amid hurling of stones at each other.

“Over 1,000 people were injured in the incident. They were admitted to the local hospital. However, some of them suffered serious injuries and were referred to hospitals in Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh and Nagpur in Maharashtra”, Pandhurna district collector Niraj Vashisth said.

Although the local district administration had asked the people to observe the fair symbolically without pelting stones at each other, stone missiles were seen flying from both sides leading to injuries to the participants.

Mr. Vashisth said that the district administration would scan through the CCTV footage to find out the violators of the prohibition rules and take necessary action against them.

Official reports said that a five-year-old boy who came to the site along with his mother to witness the festival sustained injury in his head after being hit by a stone.

Many people sustained head injuries, while several others were left with fractures of their collar bones and toes, reports said.

Around 750 police personnel were deployed at the spot while seven medical camps were established where 44 doctors were deployed to treat the injured at the site.

The fair has its origin in a 400-year-old legend about a youth from Pandhurna, seen as the “boy’s side” and a girl from Sawargaon trying to elope.

As the couple reached the Jam River, villagers hurled stones to stop them killing the lovebirds in the process.

The dangerous sport has claimed the lives of 13 people in the last 70 years, according to the police.