Sambit Patra calls Bengaluru stampede a ‘government-manufactured’ tragedy

Terming the Bengaluru stampede, wherein 11 people were killed, “government-manufactured”, BJP leader Sambit Patra on Thursday claimed that there was a rift between Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy CM DK Shivakumar.

Questioning the coordination between the police and the organisers of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) event at M Chinnaswamy stadium, Patra said, “This happened because of the issues between the CM and the DCM. The DCM said that the capacity of the Chinnaswamy Stadium is 35000, but 3 lakh people were present in the victory march. Why did that happen? The police did not permit the victory march, so why was it carried out? Who decided to go ahead with it?”

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“Why was there no coordination between the police and the organisers? The worst part is, the felicitations continued while people were dying,” he charged.

The BJP leader also accused the Chief Minister of state of “normalising the loss of 11 innocent lives.”

“Was it just an accident or a manufactured stampede? I say it was a government-manufactured stampede. The Chief Minister went on to say that such stampedes keep happening and are normal. He is trying to normalise the loss of 11 innocent lives,” Patra said.

Earlier today, Union Minister G Kishan Reddy also blamed the Karnataka government for the incident, calling it a ‘complete failure’ of the state government.

“This is due to the complete failure of the Karnataka Government. Everyone knew that there would be a huge crowd today (after RCB’s win in the final), but no proper security arrangement or traffic management was done,” he told media persons.

Meanwhile, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar complimented the state police force for controlling the massive influx of people during the RCB celebrations.

“Again, I’m talking on record. I should complement my Police officers…morning also, they wanted to have a procession, they wanted to bring a vehicle from the airport itself…Police guided us not to…that’s why I rushed to the airport and ensured nothing went wrong…in Vidhana Soudha, also we were very cautious…,” the Deputy Chief Minister said.

According to the state government figure, 11 people died and 33 others injured during the stampede at the M Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru.

The government has also announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh for the kin of the deceased and provided medical treatment for the injured.