What went wrong?: Confused messaging over victory parade and open-air event at Vidhana Soudha brought over two lakh to the streets

Fan frenzy in Bengaluru after RCB's IPL win leads to stampede, 11 dead; confusion over victory parade blamed.

The fan frenzy that broke out on the city’s streets after Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) won the IPL finals in Ahmedabad on Tuesday night seems to have flowed into Wednesday. An open-air felicitation to the team on the steps of the Vidhana Soudha and confused messaging over a victory parade by the team in Bengaluru on Wednesday, despite the city police never clearing it, brought over two lakh people onto the streets, eventually leading to a stampede that left 11 dead, sources said.

The city police are learnt to have objected to a victory parade, citing security and crowd management concerns and asked the revelry to be held at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium with limited entry. “There was no time to prepare for such a large gathering in the central business district (CBD), as we had only a few hours,” a senior official said.

Suggestions to hold the victory celebrations on Sunday were shot down by the political leadership, sources said.

“There was a frenzy on the city’s streets on Tuesday night, and our personnel were already tired doing bandobast all night. There was very little time to prepare. Against the police advice, the political leadership was insistent on holding an open-air event at the Vidhana Soudha and a victory parade as well,” a senior official said.

Despite the police not clearing a victory parade and saying there will be no parade by Wednesday noon, the RCB management had taken to social media as early as 7 a.m. on Wednesday, announcing a victory parade, and reiterating the same at 8 a.m. and 3.15 p.m. This galvanised RCB fans to descend on the streets of the CBD.

The back and forth that happened through Wednesday, over the victory parade, indicates that the police advice was not strictly adhered to by the political leadership as well. The traffic police, which said there would be no victory parade by noon, issued traffic diversions for a victory parade “in case it happens” by 3 p.m., indicating pressure to allow the parade. It was cancelled only after a stampede at the stadium led to deaths. Not only this, the State government also felicitated the team on the steps of the Vidhana Soudha, which was attended by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot, among others.

“The stadium has a seating capacity of only 32,000. But lakhs of fans were on the streets to catch a glimpse of the team either at the Vidhana Soudha or during the announced parade. The RCB management announced that entry into the stadium would be based on free passes, which people had to download from their website. But no such thing could be enforced. By around 3.30 p.m., the gates were first opened, and the stadium was full within no time. But thousands remained outside the gates demanding to be let in. It was in this chaos that the stampedes happened,” a senior official recounted, adding that had there been no confusion over the victory parade, maybe the numbers on the street would have been far lesser.