Seven persons were killed and at least nine were injured in a stampede that occurred when a crowd of devotees was climbing a hill to go to a temple in Bihar’s Jehanabad in the early hours of Monday, The Indian Express reported.

The stampede took place around 12.30 am when a group of kanwariyas – devotees of the Hindu deity Shiva – were climbing the Barabar hills to offer prayers at the Baba Siddheshwarnath Temple.

Suman Kumar, a relative of an injured kanwariya, said that there were common routes for people to visit the temple and return from there. “As number of devotees started swelling ahead of onset of fourth Monday of Saawan month, police could not manage crowd and instead opened lathicharge that might have caused the stampede,” Kumar alleged.

Some locals alleged that National Cadet Corps volunteers also used batons to control the crowd, NDTV reported.

However, Jehanabad Sub-Divisional Officer Vikash Kumar denied the claim.

“Nothing like that happened,” he said. “This was an unfortunate incident. There was strict vigil. Adequate arrangements including force [NCC], civil deputations and medical teams were made. We will give more details after the post-mortem.”

District Magistrate Alankrita Pandey was quoted as saying by PTI that the stampede was caused by a dispute among the kanwariyas.