Karnataka High Court Takes Suo Moto Cognisance of Bengaluru Stadium Stampede Incident

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has taken suo motu cognisance of the Chinnaswamy Stadium stampede and issued a notice to the state government, directing it to file a status report on the incident.

Taking suo motu cognizance, the High Court stated, “News items published in various newspapers narrate the tragedy in which 11 persons lost their lives and 75 were injured during the victory celebrations of RCB. This court is taking cognisance of the incident.”

The Karnataka High Court has initiated this suo motu action to determine the cause of the tragedy and explore measures to prevent such incidents in the future.

The case has been listed for its next hearing on June 10.

The Karnataka Attorney General informed the court that although adequate police personnel had been deployed, the crowd near the stadium exceeded expectations.

What happened in Bengaluru during RCB IPL title victory celebrations?  

Royal Challengers Bengaluru, which secured its maiden IPL title after an 18-year wait by defeating Punjab Kings in the final on Tuesday at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Motera, Gujarat, had planned to celebrate the victory in Bengaluru with teammates and fans.

A victory felicitation program was scheduled in Bengaluru on Wednesday. However, what was meant to be a joyous celebration turned into a tragedy when a stampede occurred outside the Chinnaswamy Stadium, where the felicitation ceremony was set to take place.

According to Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's statement made in the press conference on Wednesday, at least 11 people died in the stampede and 33 were injured. Majority of those who were killed in the stampede were students, engineers and youth people.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the presser held yesterday said no body expected that such a huge crowd would turn up for the victory celebration event.

The state government has announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the victims of the stampede and would also bear the expenses of the hospital treatment.

On Wednesday, Bengaluru witnessed massive crowd as lakhs of fans had gathered for the RCB facilitation event. The victory celebrations were planned to take place at the Chinnaswamy stadium which had the capacity to host around 35,000 people, however, people turned up in lakhs, exposing preparations made by the authorities which struggled and failed to control the crowd.