Taking place once every 12 years, the Maha Kumbh Mela Festival begins on 27January and runs through 25 February in Allahabad, India.
India's Kumbh Mela festival, the largest gathering in the world, happens only once every 12 years and kicked off this week in Allahabad.
The stampede occurred late Sunday in Allahabad, a city in Uttar Pradesh that is hosting this year's Kumbh Mela from Jan. 14 to March 10.
The last Kumbh Mela (pitcher fair), 12 years ago in Allahabad, which attracts the biggest crowds of the four, set a record for a human congregation.
The one in Allahabad, which is also held every twelve years, is the most important and largest, and this is called a Maha (or great) Kumbh Mela.
State government officials said there were currently examining objections from Hindu saints and officials in Allahabad - one of the four places where the festival takes place.
Railway authorities in Allahabad could not be reached for comment.
People thronged to the main hospital in Allahabad to see if their relatives were among 36 dead and 30 people injured in Sunday evening's stampede at the city's train station.
On Monday, the head of the festival organising committee Azam Khan resigned in response to the stampede at the main railway station in Allahabad, the victims of which were returning pilgrims.
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But the high court in Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh overturned the ruling following a petition filed by two Muslims who argued Mr Advani could not be exonerated while the trial of the other seven continued.
Six years ago on the opening day of the Ardh Kumbh festival - an Ardh (or half) Kumbh is held every six years - in Allahabad I had asked the senior-most police officer for his estimate of the gathering.
Thirty-five Harvard colleagues and I are at the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, India, a mass pilgrimage in which tens of millions of Hindus gather to bathe at the confluence of the sacred Ganga (Ganges) River, the Yamuna River, and the mythical underground Saraswathi.
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It is a wonderful spectacle, a great demonstration of the variety and vigour of Hinduism, an occasion to preach politics and conduct business, but there would be no Kumbh Mela were it not for the faith that draws millions of pilgrims to the Sangam in Allahabad.
The once-every-12-years Hindu pilgrimage, the Maha Kumbh Mela has been taking place near the city of Allahabad in India.
In Hindu creation myths, the gods and demons fought over a kumbh (pitcher) containing the nectar of immortality, but during the fight four drops of the liquid fell to earth, one at Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, one at Hardiwar in Uttarakhand, one at Ujjian in Madhya Pradesh and one at Nashik in Maharashtra.
In one constituency, Allahabad city, only 24% of voters cast ballots.
So after years of planning, Mr Turner left his 90-acre avocado and blueberry farm in Comboyne, north of Sydney, last October and arrived in Varanasi, near Allahabad, with his family.
Many believe that when gods and demons fought over a pitcher of nectar, a few drops fell in the cities of Allahabad, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar - the four places where the Kumbh festival has been held for centuries.
Police in the northern Indian city of Allahabad have detained a photographer from France for flying "dangerously low" in a helicopter over the Kumbh Mela festival.
There are also thousands of poor families living under the open skies in cold weather here at the sprawling festival grounds in the northern city of Allahabad.
Pilgrims believe that by attending the festival and bathing in the waters of the rivers that run through Allahabad or the other host cities, they will cleanse away their sins and bring salvation.
When researchers played them 20-second clips that contained a mix of sounds recorded at different sites, including in the Mela grounds and also the streets of Allahabad city, the pilgrims could pick up the sounds of the festival and "interpreted and experienced these noises much more positively when they believed them to be Mela-related".
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In Uttar Pradesh various divisions of the state including Garhwal, Bareily, Allahabad , Varanasi, Faizabad, Agra and Lucknow have been experiencing above normal temperatures for almost a fortnight.
In 2001, more than 40 million people gathered on the main bathing day at Allahabad, breaking a world record for the biggest human gathering.
But the helicopter carrying the foreign photographer flew so low over the bathing area that police boats in the water began shaking due to the turbulence caused by the helicopter's rotors, Allahabad's most senior official Devesh Chaturvedi told the BBC.
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