Fifteen women were killed and 48 people injured in a stampede on the staircase of an overbridge in Mughalsarai station, the biggest railway junction in the country.

The incident occurred when there was a sudden surge of people who came out of two trains, arriving almost simultaneously on platforms five and six around 1345 hours, on the staircase of an overbridge, Mughalsarai Divisional Railway Manager H K Kala said.

Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav told PTI over phone that 15 women were killed and 37 persons were injured in the incident.

He said the sudden surge of passengers triggered the stampede.

Nitin Ramesh Gokaran, commissioner of Varanasi division, told PTI that the condition of seven of the 48 injured was serious and they have been refered to Sir Sunder Lal Hospital in Varanasi, while others are being treated at the railway hospital in Mughalsarai.

Wednesday was a holy day on the occasion of Putrajaya, a local festival, when fasting women had alighted from trains to go to Varanasi, 20 km away from Mughalsarai, for a bath in the Ganges [Images].

Lalu Prasad said that under railway rules in such cases, the next of the kin of the dead are given Rs 100,000 as compensation and the relatives of the injured Rs 50,000.