A senior police officer said at least 30 people died as a crowd panicked at the Hindu Kumbh Mela mega-festival in the northern city of Prayagraj.

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.

The late release of casualty figures at the gathering of millions of people was seen as shielding the political fortunes of a local leader with national aspirations.

Moments before a deadly stampede at the world's biggest religious gathering in India, Hindu devotees queuing to take a spiritual bath in a river said they pleaded with police to open barricaded routes to thin out a surging crowd.

People were trampled as pilgrims at the Maha Kumbh Mela, one of the world’s biggest gatherings, gathered where the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers meet.

Tens of thousands of people at a massive religious gathering in India rushed to take a holy bath in the country’s northern Prayagraj city, setting off a stampede early Wednesday that has injured dozens.

Hindu pilgrim Parvati Gupta braved jostling crowds to be at the world's largest religious festival in India but will leave with injuries that will keep her bedridden for months.