Bengaluru: The happiness on the face of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) fans was short-lived as the IPL victory celebrations outside the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru turned tragic on Wednesday when a stampede claimed lives of several people. While families of the victims are mourning the loss of their loves ones, a blame game has now taken the centerstage and several questions on what led to the tragedy are being raised.
At least 11 people died and 33 others were left injured after a deadly stampede broke out outside the Bengaluru stadium during RCB’s victory celebrations following their Indian Premier League (IPL) victory after an 18-year wait. Thousands of cricket enthusiasts had thronged to the stadium to participate in the ILP team’s first-ever IPL victory celebrations on Wednesday. Most of the deceased included young people, with several of them being students.
According to police sources, confusion over free passes, victory parade, over crowding and limited seats at the stadium were said to be some of the major factors that led to the stampede. Many cricket fans tried to enter the stadium into the premises without entry tickets, they said. While the stakeholders are trying to wash off their hands of the deaths of the cricket fans, here are some questions and doubts that need to be addressed by the authorities.
- Did the state grossly misjudge the crowd size, letting over 3 lakh fans flood a space that couldn’t handle even half?
- If both police and government advised a Sunday event, who pushed for an early celebration and why was that ignored?
- Was public safety sacrificed just to suit foreign players’ departure schedules?
- Could the slab collapse near Gate 18 have been avoided, and will BBMP face consequences for triggering the panic?
- Who spread the rumour about free passes at Gate 7 and why wasn’t it fact-checked or shut down immediately?
- Why were emergency corridors missing and medical teams delayed, despite clear signs of an uncontrollable crowd?
- Did conflicting signals from RCB and the government leave fans confused and directly contribute to chaos?
- Why was there no serious crowd control strategy in place for what was clearly a massive public event?
- With drone tech and live monitoring available, why was real-time crowd assessment not deployed?
- Why was there no unified coordination between BBMP, police and RCB, who was in charge?
- Were police told to go soft on fans, and did that hesitation cost lives?
- Why did the government organise its own felicitation the same day it warned against crowd risks?
- Could this entire tragedy have been avoided with a 48-hour delay, and who takes responsibility for refusing that window?
