Hathras stampede: The day after, kin and locals grapple with grief

A deafening silence enveloped the mufassil sleepy town of Hathras near Aligarh, with heavy police deployment across the streets and especially at the district hospital. The silence was occasionally broken by the sounds of sirens, signalling a VIP was on the way or a body was being taken in an ambulance. Each time a police vehicle or vehicle of a minister or government official stopped, 60-year-old Surendra Singh ran towards the vehicle with one request - he wanted his wife's body to be released from the postmortem house inside the hospital.