The show must go on, even as innocent people die. The evening of 4th June 2025 became the worst nightmare for thousands of people gathered in Bengaluru to attend sudden celebrations for the first-in-18-years IPL victory of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). Overwhelming crowd, chaos and gross mismanagement at the Chinnaswamy Stadium resulted in a deadly stampede that claimed 11 lives and left dozens injured.
The tragedy, marked by sheer mismanagement, chaos and a glaring lack of preparedness by the Congress government in Karnataka, has a cast a dark shadow of RCB’s historic win. The apathy of the Karnataka government, coupled with inadequate crowd control measures turned the moment of collective joy into one of immense sorrow, raising questions over public safety and accountability.
#WATCH | Bengaluru, Karnataka: Visuals from outside Chinnaswamy Stadium, where the slippers and shoes are scattered. A stampede occurred here, claiming the lives of 11 people and injuring 33 people. pic.twitter.com/5DBhW9IFli
— ANI (@ANI) June 4, 2025
A wave of euphoria prevailed in Bengaluru after Royal Challengers Bengaluru defeated Punjab Kings on 3rd June in the final match at Ahmedabad to clinch their maiden Indian Premier League trophy. To celebrate the IPL franchise’s triumph, a victory parade on 4th June was announced, starting from Vidhan Soudha, where the RCB team was felicitated by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramiah and Deputy CM DK Shivakumar.
Followed by this, there were celebrations at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. However, the event drew an unprecedented crowd, far exceeding the stadium’s capacity of 32,000. The massive turnout, passion of RCB fans to have a glimpse of Virat Kohli and other team members and lapses in crowd management led to catastrophic consequences.
Eyewitness accounts and viral videos show uncontrolled crowds, bottlenecked entry points, and a visibly underprepared security apparatus. The injured persons were taken to the Bowering Hospital in Shivajinagar from the stadium area. Anticipating the arrival of the RCB team from Vidhana Soudha to Chinnaswamy Stadium, fans had jam-packed the roads and alleys between the two places, causing traffic chaos and a law and order situation.
Victory parade taken out despite local police’s refusal
It is being reported that the victory parade was taken out despite the Bengaluru Police stating that there will be no such parade. The RCB on the team’s social media pages on Wednesday posted that the victory parade will take place at 5 pm and also announced limited free passes. This came hours after the Bengaluru Police had stated that no such parade will take place due to security reasons. The local police also denied permission for an open-top bus parade.
Some social media users highlighted that the Bengaluru traffic police had posed on X saying that no victory parade will take place. However, after RCB franchise’s official handle posted that the parade will indeed take place, the Bengaluru traffic police deleted its post.
at 1:08PM- Bengaluru City Traffic tweeted that there will be no victory Parade.
— Facts (@BefittingFacts) June 4, 2025
at 3:14PM- RCB Tweeted that victory parade will happend at 5pm.
Bengaluru City Police deleted their tweet.
Why? pic.twitter.com/LBzaGZqnbt
As per the police, over 50,000 fans had gathered within a one-kilometre radius of the stadium, and many of them tried to push through the gates and climb barriers installed by the authorities. It is due to the inability to manage such a huge crowd in a small area that the police had denied permission for victory parade. This aspect was also pointed out by sports journalist Vikrant Gupta in a video.
SPEECHLESS 💔 pic.twitter.com/qmqQOynOLs
— BALA (@erbmjha) June 4, 2025
While questions must be raised over the local administration’s failure, the management of the RCB is also to be questioned for unusual hurry to fly the team to Karnataka and organise a the celebration in haste. There was serious communication gap.
As per Karnataka deputy CM, while the Chinnaswamy stadium’s capacity was of 32,000, over 3 lakh people had gathered there. Although the severe backlash Karnataka government is receiving has compelled the minister to ‘apologise’, this sensitivity was missing when the stampede happened.
Death toll increased outside Chinnaswamy stadium, celebrations continued inside
Even as the news of a stampede broke, Deputy CM DK Shivakumar arrived at the stadium for celebrations and said how he is very proud of RCB and Karnataka and Kohli’s loyalty has paid royalty.
Inside the stadium, celebrations were going on, with Karnataka CM and deputy CM and RCB players and management rejoicing, all while the fans of the same team were dying, enduring injuries and battling to come out alive. While it is being said that people inside the stadium were largely unaware of what tragedy unfolded outside the stadium, however, it is impossible that the state’s chief minister and deputy chief minister, who are responsible for ensuring the safety of their people, especially during such massive events, were unaware of the stampede.
The least the authorities could have done is stop the celebrations and take swift action to disperse the crowd properly. However, the Karnataka ministers decided to let the show go on, make reels and hog limelight with cricketers.
The deputy CM posted on X giving out open invitation to everyone to join the celebrations of RCB’s victory despite knowing the fact that the fan frenzy was uncontrollable. The Congress government hastened the celebrations even as there was a lack of adequate security and crowd management arrangements.
The state government and RCB should have coordinated to hold the celebrations and even victory parade after two or three days in well-planned manner just as NDA government in Maharashtra did after India’s T20 World Cup in last year, so that the Bengaluru police and administration could get enough time to make necessary arrangements. However, communication gap and the state government’s apparent desperation to encash the moment and emotions of fans resulted in hurried celebrations that eventually transformed into a gut-wrenching tragedy.
Despite knowing the popularity of RCB in Bengaluru and the significance of the franchise’s first IPL title, the state government grossly underestimated the turnout or perhaps they were not much concerned about the possibility of a stampede-like situation as they were engrossed in encashing the triumphant moment.
While the Bengaluru Police initially denied permission for an open-bus parade due to safety reasons, the event proceeded regardless, with insufficient security measures. Reports say that around 5,000 police personnel were deployed, however, this number was woefully inadequate for a crowd of lakhs in such a small place. There was a lack of proper barricades, entry protocols, and crowd dispersal strategies leading fans who were already running high on emotions to breach gates, climb over barriers. Meanwhile, the collapse of a temporary slap over a drain under the weight of the crowd near the stadium also contributed to escalating panic.
Besides, rumours of free tickets being distributed at the main entrance became nothing less than a death trap as massive crowd turned over to claim their free tickets even though there no such official announcement.
Notably, the Chinnaswamy stadium has 21 stands with 13 gates. Gates 9 and 10 were reserved for state cricket association members. The gates 5, 6, 7, 19 and 20, located along the team’s main entry route witnessed the highest concentration of crowds. Reports say that maximum deaths happened at gate 7.
“There was an ambulance with 40 injured people. I was lucky to get out in time. Even police were struggling to manage the crowd,” said Avinash from RR Nagar.
Another eyewitness Sinchana N, who got caught in the melee, said, “I could avoid the worst only because I reached late. Cops were not controlling the crowd in the real sense, and were just pushing people around.”
The visuals of the stampede and eyewitness accounts describe scenes of desperation, with people trampled and unconscious before finally help arrived. As the crowd was beyond the expected estimates of the authorities, emergency services were overwhelmed, with ambulances struggling to navigate through crowded streets and police had to do lathi-charge to disperse the crowd.
Delayed response to crisis, overwhelming crowd, communication gaps, prioritising publicity over public safety, rumours, disastrous crowd control and the state government’s apathy collectively caused the stampede that turned a day meant to be remembered for celebration of a historic victory into a day of unimaginable tragedy.
While the stampede unfolded outside Chinnaswamy stadium, the state’s Chief Minister, Deputy CM and other leaders appeared disconnected from the crisis. Their celebratory mood persisted even as the reports of the stampede emerged, with the event inside the stadium continuing as if nothing tragic happened at all. A lap of honour and brief speeches continued for about 30 minutes and eventually the program was abruptly halted.
The Karnataka Chief Minister announced Rs 10 lakh compensation for the families of the deceased and ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident. The Chief Minister acknowledged the unexpected scale of the crowd, however, this situation would never had arose if instead of announcing celebrations in a haste, the Congress government took a few days to plan the event well and then organise celebrations. This too little, too late response is essentially useless now that so many people who came to a part of a celebration lost their lives.
Also, in a country like India, where cricket celebrations are predictable spectacles, giving excuses like ‘we did not expected this much crowd’ does not make sense. It is rather, the most convenient way of evading accountability.
RCB has a issued a statement mourning the loss of lives, cricketers will also issue statements on Instagram with a heartbreak emojis and thick-skinned politicians will play blame game, compensations and inquiry have already been announced, massive social media outrage is ongoing, but those who lost their lives in the stampede will never return. Their families are devastated all because of the state government’s misplaced priorities and criminal negligence. This tragedy serves as a painful lesson that no victory, no celebration, however historic, is worth a human life. The dystopian scenes from Bengaluru on 4th June 2025 will haunt the city and India for a long time, and remind the people that for apathetic leaders, people are just crowd, just numbers and nothing more.
