Bhubaneswar: The victory parade of RCB turned into a deadly tragedy when the information of sudden uncontrollable crowd gathered for witnessing the celebration of Royal Challengers Bengaluru winning the IPL trophy after a long wait if 18 years at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. The crazy RCB fans began to gather at outside the stadium until late night on Wednesday, 4 June to see their cricket heroes. When the cricketers landed to attend the function the crowd began to swell making the situation going out of control. There are pictures and videos circulating on social media how the fans are climbing trees, barricades and walls just have a glimpse of the cricketers.
During the ongoing event, even though there were political leaders, deputy CM of the state, D K Shivakumar, cricketers, other management personnel present at the celebration inside the stadium, oblivious of the unfathomable incident happening
outside. People including children were getting suffocated, and succumbed to death was the reality. Only when the lights were off, the crowd settled down , everybody headed their homes post the function was over, just to realize the 11 lives this celebration has claimed. This stampede occurred when over 3 lakh fans gathered at the stadium to see the victory celebration through a free ticket distribution. This free ticket campaign was announced proposing to enter inside the stadium premises which has the capability of only 35,000. Here a legitimate question arises if there is an announcement of distributing free tickets for seeing the celebration and everybody in the management was aware they the stadium can carry only 35,000 people then why there were no measures taken to control the crowd when it began to swelled uncontrollably.
Report says, mist of the crowd present inside the stadium were without tickets and those who had tickets were waiting outside. The eager fans started to climb over the barricades, running from one gate to another hoping to get inside when they were denied entry. The fans even tried to scale the stadium wall being desperate to get a visual of their stars. The stampede escalated when the heavily outnumbered police deployed to manage the crowd hastily lathi charged without having any other options. It is nothing but a dark spot on the victorious and happy memories. The lives that are gone, the families which lost their loved ones will not be able to get back but the trophy will return every year with a new team, new winners. People, including all of them who were part of that celebration should understand this with a little sensitivity. Everything is not about winning or losing, life of the people are more precious than anything.
-OdishaAge
