Chinnaswamy Stadium stampede: Massive crowds, unprepared police and loss of lives

BENGALURU: While the stampede at the Chinnaswamy Stadium left 11 people dead an 47 injured, it has emerged that the city police were against allowing such a large crowd near Vidhana Soudha and the stadium without proper arrangements.

All the victims died due to suffocation, as per the autopsy reports.

While it is widely being said by families of the victims that free entry was announced by the state government and the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) led to the surge of fans, the police were ill-prepared to handle the massive crowd. According to Home Minister Parameshwara, about eight lakh people had turned up at the stadium, which is unprecedented.

City Police Commissioner B Dayananda was reportedly against holding such a massive event at short notice without proper security arrangements in place. He had also suggested that the felicitation and victory parade could have been held on Sunday.

However, the KSCA was worried that the overseas players with the RCB franchise would fly back and allegedly exerted pressure on the government to give permission for the event. Passes had not been printed for the victory parade in the stadium and the KSCA had planned to allow fans on first-come-first-serve basis, sources pointe dout.

The stampede was a result of massive crowds turning up and people being allowed in only through select gates, which led to overcrowding, the sources pointed out. Though fans had started lining up around 1 pm itself, they were not allowed inside till 4 pm.

Those who collapsed at the stadium were rushed to hospitals.

The crowds surged towards the gates that were opened, breaking barricades, leading to a manhole cover giving way which led to some fans falling down and getting crushed, the source said.