20,000 women with their children were gathered in the Faizan-e-Madina mosque in the eastern district of Karachi to mark the birthday of their prophet, which takes place on Tuesday.
According
to witnesses, the crash occurred when a woman bent down to pick up a young girl who had fallen, thing which caused people behind the woman to trip.
"I heard a girl crying for help and a woman stopped to pick her up. When the woman stopped, there was a wave of people who stepped over us. Someone pulled me to the side and after I gained consciousness, I was in the hospital," said a 40-year-old woman involved in the incident in which 29 people were killed and over 100 injured.
Hafiz Hassan Attari, of the Dawat-e-Islami missionary group which is in charge of running the center, said: "numerous innocent lives perished, (but) they embraced martyrdom and we pray for their eternal peace."
A Karachi police official, Asif Ijaz Sheikh, said that the police is investigating the stampede, which appears to be an incident. "We will ask the center's administration to take steps so that such incidents do not happen in the future," he added.
These kinds of religious gatherings are often accompanied by stampedes, especially during the hajj pilgrimage to the cities of Medina and Mecca in Saudi Arabia. In January, over 360 people were killed in Mina and 1990 hajj stampede killed 1,426 pilgrims.
“ewan ko ba, when i hear of stampede = wowowee”
