Our event organizers, public, government authorities, police et al do not learn from the recent stampede at Mahakumbh mela and do not take extraordinary precautionary and safety measures to prevent stampede recurrence. The bitter truth, the hard fact is that stampedes keep repeating and human lives are lost because of it. The post-victory celebration of the IPL cricket match should not have degenerated into a stampede and the consequent deaths of 11 people and injury of many other cricket fans and spectators. The IPL Cricket match between Royal Challenger Bangaluru and Punjab kings was the victory after 18 long years and there is nothing wrong with significant and justifiable celebration of this winning. But the celebration took the form of catastrophe which should never have taken place. The victor parade was conducted and there was capacity for 35,000 people and more or less like four lakh spectators and cricket fans ended up witnessing the parade and resulted in stampede which caused the cruel death of eleven people and injuries to many spectators and cricket fans. A celebratory victory should be a time of enjoyment, where the joy and pleasure surrounding the event all come to life, but in light of negligence of the event organizers of the victory road show, what should have been a joyful event ended up being a stampede.
A cause for celebration rapidly turned into one of sorrow. What was to be a celebration to commemorate Royal challengers Bangaluru’s historic win in IPL 2025 turned out to be a catastrophe. There were a number of ignored warnings and mismanagement that contributed to a stampede in Bangaluru. Inaccurate announcements to mat failures at crowd –control, there are five causes of the confusion that culminated in tragedy. Tens of thousands, if not lakhs, gathered within 1km of Bangaluru’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium, on Sunday in order to celebrate the Royal Challengers first ever IPL title. Hours later the resolved celebration became a tragedy, with 11 lives lost in the stampede that ensued. But many hours, even before, signs were already present – visible, recognizable, avoidable and actionable – but ignored and rendered useless. It is the usual blame game and politics that has started the day after around the tragedy in a country that experiences stampedes as regularly as the changing seasons. Like the case of the stampede at the New Delhi Railway station in February, in which five red flags were ignored, the RCB celebration also had some red flags. A little attention to , or acknowledgment of, them could potentially have avoided the stupefying tragedy that ensued.
The IST Victory parade would be followed by celebrations at the Chinaswamy stadium," it posted and urged fans to follow the police guidelines . The post announced an open-top bus parade from Vidhana Soudha to the stadium, and published at 12.04 pm, it caused quite a rush of fans, despite the earlier announcement from the Bangaluru traffic police at 11.56 that it was not going ahead due to security issues. The two conflicting messages caused confusion with many fans congegrating in large crowds outside the stadium, mostly unaware that the parade was cancelled. The RBC's promotion of the event, despite the police prior advice, contributed to the massive surge of people and turned a general gathering into a significant safety issue. At 3.14 pm, the RBC were also promoting limited free passes for the stadium event which were limited and only available on line, and made it an even bigger rush with free access. They began issuing passes, but then authorities later decreed free access for all. What happened next was a massive surge of people moving and entering directly towards the gates of the stadium. Fans, with or without a pass were all attempting to gain access and the number of people greatly exceded the number of entry points.
Eyewitnesses stated that there was not enough security at the gates. Although Bangaluru police had told the Karnataka government to hold the event on a Sunday to limit traffic and provide enough time to properly plan for security. The police were probably exhausted after working all night managing the crowds during the event after the victory on Tuesday night and had limited time to plan and manage the events.
Senior police officials in Bengaluru stated that they had communicated their warnings about holding the RCB celebrations at short notice and their request for the government delay the celebrations by a week. The government ignored these warnings and instead chose to move forwards and this error caused chaos, insufficient personnel, poor barricades, and a deadly stampede that resulted in the loss of innocent lives (11 at last count). Political leaders of the state must have wanted to cash in on the peak celebratory state of mind. Karnataka deputy CM DK Shivakumar said there buried were 5000 police got deployed to the RCB celebration event, he called the crowds "uncontrollable." However, in court, the states Advocate General said there were a little over 1000 deployed. Bhaskar Rao, former Bengaluru police chief, criticized the "unplanned, hasty, disorganized celebrations", and stated "As former city top cop, I would have instructed the CM to postpone the victory march and felicitations.
The narrow passageways and a collapsed temporary slab over the drain near the stadium caused panic which caused deaths due to asphyxia. Police have filed a suo motto FIR against RCB, KSCA officials and DNA Entertainment Pvt Ltd., booking them for culpable homcide for the stampede that killed 11 recently. All those responsible for the stampede and subsequent deaths and injuries must be arrested and challaned and exemplary punishment be given to them at speed trail. It is very troubling that the tragedy has been politicized and various political parties are politicking the sad issues for their own political expediency. But we need that no politics must be done on this issues and political parties must not politicick on this. But it is a hard fact that government, RCB, KSCA and the event managers of the celebrations are all responsible for the stampede as well as the negligence of cricket fans. Such stampedes should not occur in future and all of us including government must show restraint and responsibility in future and as far as possible and take steps so that stampedes do not happen in the future.
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