Ninth fatal victim of Astroworld tragedy was attending first-ever concert
The latest Travis Scott fan to die of “horrific injuries” from the rapper’s Astroworld show had been at her very first concert, her grieving family revealed.
Bharti Shahani, the 22-year-old college student who on Wednesday became the ninth fatality from the Houston festival, shocked her family by even asking to go, her grief-stricken mom told a press conference Thursday.
“First thing she asked me in life, ‘Mama, can I go to this concert?'” mom Karishma Shahani said, calling her daughter “pure love.”
“This was the first thing she asked me for herself.
“At first I said, ‘No no no.’ Because we don’t go to concerts — we don’t even know what [concerts are] all about,” she said, assuming it would just be “music and having fun.”
“But this is not a concert. I don’t know what it was, but this was not a concert — because my baby did not come back,” she sobbed.
She called her daughter a “blessing” from God, imploring those at the press conference, “What happened to my blessing now?
“I want my baby back — I won’t be able to live without her,” she sobbed, saying the loss has left her “empty.”
Shahani, who was set to graduate from Texas A&M University in the spring, went to the deadly gig with her sister, Namrata Shahani, who said that her caring last words to her were, “Are you OK?”
“For the first time in her life she just wanted to have fun, and that was taken from her,” said her sister about the gig where they were also joined by a cousin, Mohit Bellani.
Shahani died late Wednesday after suffering “horrific, horrific injuries” at the show five days earlier, said James Lassiter, a lawyer for the family.
The way that this festival was put on was a “recipe for disaster” that ended in tragedies that “no parent should go through,” Lassiter said of the nine victims, all between 14 and 27. A 9-year-old boy in a coma is among at least two still in critical condition.
“We want to make sure that the people who decided to put profits over the safety of the lives of children are held responsible,” said Lassiter.
Shahani’s dad, Bhagu, called his daughter “the head of the family” with a “bright future.”
“Please please make sure that she gets justice. I don’t want somebody else’s daughter to go like this,” he pleaded.
“Sicko Mode” rapper Scott — who has a history of violent shows — has come under fire after he was caught on videos noticing trouble at the gig, but continuing the performance anyway.
Police radio transmissions show that the gig even continued more than 30 minutes after it was declared a mass casualty incident.
However, one of the star’s lawyers, Ed McPherson, insisted in an interview with the “Today” show aired Friday that the rapper would have stopped had he known how serious the crush was.
“Nobody told him to stop the show until ultimately right before the show ended,” he said.
“You have pyrotechnics all around you, there’s a lot of noise, a lot of light. It’s the middle of the night. You have ear monitors in your ear with music blasting, you can’t see things that are going on out there,” McPherson insisted of the star, who was seen noticing unconscious fans and an ambulance trying to make its way through the crush.
“He’s especially devastated because this was in his hometown. He has a lot of ties to Houston, a lot of love for Houston,” he said.
“And he’s just really hurting right now.”
