At least 17 people were killed and many more injured in a stampede at India's Maha Kumbh festival, the world's largest religious gathering, a doctor at a government hospital said, as tens of thousands of pilgrims rushed to dip in sacred river waters during the Hindu event.

At least 30 people were killed and over 30 have been injured in a stampede at the Maha Kumbh Mela, one of the world's biggest gatherings that occurs every 12 years.

Families from West Bengal allege that bodies of their relatives, who died in a Maha Kumbh Mela stampede, were returned without official death certificates. The victims, Basanti Poddar and Urmila Bhuniya,