It was April 9 when the Banke Bihari Club in Ludhiana took 130 pilgrims on a pilgrimage to Vrindavan in Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh in two buses. The following day, on Friday (April 10), at 3 pm when 38 pilgrims boarded a boat and were immersed in the devotion, they met with the tragedy as their boat capsized after hitting the pontoon bridge.The accident occurred at Keshi Ghat, about two kilometres from the Shri Banke Bihari Temple, Vrindavan.Before the accident, devotees in the boat were seen chanting ‘Radhe, Radhe’. Four videos of the devotees from Punjab, taken before the accident, have surfaced. The pilgrims could be seen singing hymns and the boat was packed beyond capacity. None of them was wearing a life jacket. A young pilgrim, playing the cymbals, sang the hymn, “Nazar Sanware Lag Na Jaye Kahin”, and a few minutes later their boat sank.On the first day of tragedy, 11 pilgrims were taken out dead from the river while during the rescue operation, bodies of four more pilgrims were fished out from the river. The death toll in the tragedy has reached 15.Sadly, most of the deceased are from Ludhiana city and Jagraon. The bodies of 15 deceased had already reached their places, and their cremation was already performed.The deceased include Chandan Behal (59) wife Charanjit Behal, Charanjit Behal (63) of Jagraon, Kavita Behal (52) wife of Vijay Behal of Jagraon, Madhur Behal (27) son of Vijay Behal of Jagraon, Ishan Kataria (26) of Jagraon, Rishab Sharma (19) of Jagraon, Rakesh Gulati (64), Rakesh’s wife Anju Gulati (62) of Phase-2, Dugri Ludhiana, Meenu Bansal (54) of Phase-2, Dugri and her daughter Dinky Bansal (21), Yuvraj alias Yash Bhalla (22) of Jassian road, Ludhiana and Monica of Ludhiana. Apart from 13 deceased from Ludhiana district, three deceased were from other places including Sapna Hans (54) from Moga, Asha Rani from Hisar and Manik (25) from Abohar.Pankaj Malhotra (33), resident of Jalalabad, is still missing. He was the only son of his parents. He was married and had two children. He had gone on a pilgrimage to Vrindavan along with his maternal aunt and uncle residents of Jagraon. His family has been camping at Vrindavan since the day of tragedy.Lack of safety measuresThe death of pilgrims in Vrindavan boat tragedy raised serious questions about the lack of safety measures. Kin of the victims blamed the administration of Vrindavan for failing to implement the safety norms for boats in the Yamuna.While raising questions over the absent safety measures, Nikhil Bansal brother of deceased Dinky Bansal, said when a boat had a capacity of about 20 persons, why were 40 pilgrims made to sit in it. Further, the people were not given life jackets to meet at emergency.“Had all the pilgrims been given life jackets, their lives could have been saved. Even my mother would have been alive today,” Nikhil said.After the tragedy, the Vrindavan police have arrested boatman, Pappu Nishad and the pontoon bridge contractor, Narayan Sharma.Ashwani Bansal, a relative of Meenu Bansal, said he would not entirely hold people operating boats at Yamuna responsible for the tragedy. Instead, pilgrims should also have exercised caution before sitting in the boat where no life jackets were being given.Mann promises memorialChief Minister Punjab Bhagwant Singh Mann promised memorial. He had also visited the aggrieved families. The CM underscored that the state government had already dispatched teams of divers to assist in the rescue efforts. Mann said that he had taken up the matter with the UP Chief Minister Aditya Yoginath to strengthen safeguards to prevent such tragedies in the future. Mann had promised that an appropriate memorial would be established in consultation with the aggrieved families.