Karnataka Home Minister estimates 8 lakh crowd at RCB event that turned deadly

Karnataka Home Minister Dr. G Parmeshwara has stated that around 8 lakh people may have gathered near Bengaluru’s Chinnaswamy Stadium during Royal Challengers Bangalore’s IPL victory celebration, which ended in a stampede that killed 11 people and injured 47 others on Tuesday evening.

"8.70 lakh Metro tickets were sold. Assuming most were cricket fans, 8 lakh people showed up," said Dr Parmeshwara. He added, "We estimated that 1 lakh people were outside Vidhan Soudha and 25,000 outside the stadium. We did not expect that 2.5 lakh people would come... There has been no previous instance of so many people gathering for cricket. It would have been a record had it gone well."

All of the victims were under 40 years old. Among those who died were three teenagers and a 13-year-old girl. Most had come to witness a historic moment — RCB's first IPL championship in 18 years.

The Home Minister confirmed that stampedes occurred at multiple gates of the stadium, including Gates 2, 2A, 6, 7, 16, 17, 18, and 21. “I have come here to see what can be done to make sure this doesn’t happen again. There is no information about people dying on the spot. We do not have information on how many died at the gates,” he said.

The victims include Divyanshi (13), Shivalinga (17), Chinmayi (19), Bhoomik (20), Prajwal (20), Shravan (20), Sahana (25), Akshata (27), Devi (29), Doresha (32), and Manoj (33). While many were residents of Bengaluru, some had travelled from surrounding districts.

The stadium has a seating capacity of just 35,000, but officials said the crowd outside swelled to several lakhs. In the aftermath, scattered footwear, phones, and bags covered the ground outside the gates, with emergency services overwhelmed by the scale of the incident.

RCB’s public announcement at 3:14 pm on Wednesday about distributing free entry passes for the celebration triggered a massive surge toward the stadium. With no centralised ticketing system or entry management, crowds rushed through the gates. Some tried to scale barricades, others were knocked over and trampled in the chaos.

While authorities claimed the event was organised at short notice, a letter dated June 3 from the Karnataka State Cricket Association requesting official permission for a felicitation event at the Vidhana Soudha appears to contradict that.

Adding to the confusion, large numbers of police personnel were deployed at the Vidhana Soudha complex — where Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, and Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot were scheduled to receive the RCB team — rather than near the stadium, where crowds were estimated at over 3 lahks.

The disparity in crowd management between the two venues is now under scrutiny, as questions mount over the adequacy of planning.