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Three peo­ple were killed and more than a dozen hos­pi­talised Sun­day fol­low­ing a sud­den crowd surge and stam­pede at a pop­u­lar Hin­du fes­ti­val in east­ern In­dia, lo­cal au­thor­i­ties said.

“There was a sud­den crowd surge of devo­tees for hav­ing a glimpse of the Hin­du deities dur­ing which a few peo­ple ei­ther faint­ed, felt suf­fo­cat­ed or com­plained of breath­less­ness,” said Sid­dharth Shankar Swain, the top gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial in Puri.

Swain told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that 15 peo­ple were rushed to a lo­cal gov­ern­ment hos­pi­tal, where three peo­ple were pro­nounced dead. Au­top­sies are planned to de­ter­mine the ex­act caus­es of death. The oth­er 12 peo­ple have been dis­charged.