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Mughalgarhi village is in Hathras District in Uttar Pradesh, in northern India. It\u2019s about 220 miles south of the state capital, Lucknow. At some point today, over a hundred people, mostly women and children, were crushed and or suffocated to death at the end of a large gathering. Yet again. And, yet again, the reports insist on describing this horrific and tragic event as a \u201cstampede\u201d. Al Jazeera<\/a><\/em> headline: \u201cDeath toll from India stampede rises to 116\u201d. New York Times<\/a><\/em> headline: \u201cStampede at Religious Gathering in India Kills More Than 100\u201d. ABC News<\/a><\/em> headline: \u201cStampede at religious event in India kills more than 100, mostly women and children\u201d. Washington Post<\/a><\/em> headline: \u201cMore than 100 killed in Indian religious event stampede, officials say\u201d. CBS News<\/a><\/em>headline: \u201cStampede at religious gathering in India leaves at least 116 people dead\u201d. The rest of the news media reserved \u201cstampede\u201d for the bodies of their respective articles, but the consensus was that a stampede had happened. And yet again that stampede resulted in the deaths of mostly women and children.<\/p>\n Stampedes occur all the time, at least according to the news media. Most recently, stampedes have been reported on in Rwanda<\/a>, Saudi Arabia<\/a>, and Gaza<\/a>. Before, they\u2019ve happened in South Africa<\/a>, Bangladesh<\/a>, Pakistan<\/a>, Indonesia<\/a>, C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire<\/a>, Thailand<\/a>, the United States<\/a>, South Korea<\/a>, El Salvador<\/a>, Guatemala<\/a>, France<\/a>,England<\/a>, and all points between and beyond. This is a drastically reduced list. Each event was horrific and tragic, but at some level the humanity of the horror and the tragedy is diluted, if not obviated, by the descriptor, stampede.<\/p>\n There was no stampede. There was no surge or rush. There was a place, constructed by hands and tools and design and policy. That place was planned. That people were killed there is either a failure of the plan or built into the plan, but what is clear is that, once again, people, the majority of whom were women and children, were sacrificed by that plan. Again, there was no stampede. As one survivor explained<\/a>, \u201cThere was no way out, and people were falling on each other\u201d. There was no way out. As one member of parliament put it<\/a>, \u201cLook what happened and how many people have lost their lives. Will anyone be accountable?\u201d Another member of parliament responded<\/a>, \u201cEvery year, these kinds of incidents keep repeating themselves, and we learn nothing\u201d. We learn nothing.<\/p>\n (By Dan Moshenberg)<\/p>\n