Kokrajhar/Guwahati, Aug. 26: The people had come to see the Prime Minister. All they got was a mini-stampede.

Non-stop rain forced cancellation of Manmohan Singh’s public meeting at Debergaon in Kokrajhar district, and a scramble for lunch packets led to a melee that left seven men and three women injured.

Some 10,000 people — mostly students — had braved the rain to gather to listen to Singh, a Rajya Sabha member from Assam touring the state.

After the announcement that the programme had been called off, the organisers asked the people to get their lunch packets from a truck parked near the gate. It set off a mad scramble on the rain-soaked, slippery ground.

“People, young and old, were pushing and pulling one another. The way the packets were being thrown from the truck triggered the incident,” an onlooker said.

Some young men were seen climbing on the truck to snatch the packets while the volunteers caned them. Police, however, quickly took control of the situation.