It has turned out to be a blame game, with the Karnataka government holding Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) responsible for the stampede outside the Chinnaswamy Stadium on June 4 that claimed 11 lives and badly injured more than 50 people.
The state government’s status report, which was made public on Thursday, stated the franchise showed complete disregard to the norms and procedures and unilaterally decided to hold the victory celebrations following their IPL triumph, without obtaining the necessary permissions from the administration. The question remains, how could a mere IPL franchise defy the might of a state government? Where did the temerity come from?
Interestingly, the Karnataka government wanted to keep the report confidential. But the Karnataka High Court rejected its plea and ordered the release of the report. The opposition has seized on this to blame the government and ruling party for the tragedy.
The status report, a copy of which has been accessed by RevSportz, laid out the sequence of events. On June 3 evening around 6.30 pm, on the day of the IPL final, Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) CEO Subhendu Ghosh submitted an intimation on behalf of DNA Entertainment, RCB’s events management wing, to the Cubbon Park police, mentioning the franchise’s intention to hold a victory parade should they win their first-ever IPL title.
“In the present case, no applications in the prescribed formats were submitted to the licensing authority by the applicant/organiser,” stated the report. It added: “In the absence of such information required under the prescribed formats, it was not possible for the licence-granting authority to consider the request positively. Accordingly, the PI of the Cubbon Park Police Station did not grant the permission to the request made by KSCA on 03.06.2025 at around 6.30 pm, due to a lack of information regarding the expected approximate gathering, arrangements made, possible bottlenecks, and the like, for both possible outcomes of the final match, i.e., whether RCB won or lost.”
Then, as the report says, RCB went ahead unilaterally, posting on their official social media handles at 7.01 am on June 4 that “there is free entry for people and inviting the public to participate in the Victory Parade, which would commence at Vidhana Soudha and conclude at Chinnaswamy Stadium”.
The report also mentions Virat Kohli. “Subsequently, on 04.06.2025, at 8:55 am, the RCB shared a video clip of Mr. Virat Kohli, a prominent player of the RCB team, on RCB’s official handle @Rcbtweets on X, in which he stated that the team intended to celebrate this victory with the people of Bengaluru city and RCB fans on 04.06.2025 in Bengaluru,” it stated.
The matter is before the Karnataka High Court and RCB haven’t reacted to the charges yet. The franchise top brass and the employees from DNA have submitted their testimonies and they are now reportedly waiting for the report of the CID investigation.
The families of the victims probably hardly care about such technical nitty-gritties. The Karnataka government ordered compensation of Rs 25 lakh each for the 11 families, while RCB disgracefully announced Rs 10 lakh for each family of the deceased. The life of a common man in this part of the world is indeed worthless.