AFP

NEW DELHI AT least 12 people, including six women were crushed to death in the middle of the night when a stampede broke out at a religious shrine in Madhya Pradesh, media reports said on Saturday.

The victims had gathered outside the Muslim shrine of Hussain Tekri to take part in a religious ceremony after midnight on Friday. Police pushed the crowds back, causing people to fall down and get trampled to death in the dark.

“Six women and four men were killed in the incident,” police official Rajesh Vyas told.

The shrine attracts tens of thousands of people each year who believe that a visit can cure any illness.

The last major stampede was in January 2011 in the southern state of Kerala when more than 100 people died as panic spread among worshippers crossing mountainous terrain in the dark to visit a shrine.

Stampedes are a regular risk in India where policing and crowd control are often inadequate at temples and on pilgrimage routes.