RCB victory stampede: Hyderabad commissioner raises concern over impromptu celebrations

Following the stampede deaths in Bengaluru over RCB’s IPL victory, the Hyderabad commissioner of police, CV Anand, has raised concerns about impromptu victory celebrations on the roads, pointing out that his team was caught completely unaware when hundreds of people descended at midnight near Tank Bund to celebrate the victory of a team which does not even belong to Hyderabad.

Posting videos of the celebrations of the unruly crowd on his social media handle, Anand who himself is a keen cricketer, pointed out that such impromptu celebrations were a big danger to public safety and cautioned that these might lead to stampede-like situations.

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The Hyderabad police commissioner said that the night patrols were taken aback when scores of people descended on the streets on the night of 3 June, when RCB lifted the trophy.

“That night, round officers were totally taken by surprise at 12 in the midnight as hordes of youngsters and revellers descended on Tank Bund, NTR Marg and Necklace Road and behaved in an unruly manner… Traffic got jammed in all directions. Seeing the situation and hooliganism, extra forces were rushed and a lathicharge was done to disperse the unruly crowd,” he stated.

The videos posted showed scary scenes of celebrations, including youngsters climbing atop moving buses and waving their jerseys, flaming torches being dangled around, and fireworks being set off by a massive crowd that had gathered near the Secretariat.

 The police commissioner went on to add that “From a police officer’s perspective, these unannounced celebrations on the streets by large gatherings are a big danger to public safety and may lead to exactly what we saw in Bengaluru.”

He said it was baffling that there could be such huge celebrations over an IPL team which was not even from Hyderabad or had a single player from the city.

“This is not a national team winning the World Cup! It’s a mere franchise which works on commercial lines and does not have a single Hyderabad player in it! It’s not even a Hyderabad-based team!” wrote Anand. Pointing out the role of social media in spreading the word about celebrations in no time, he mused that perhaps police have to be alert for everyone and everything in the future.

Incidentally, Hyderabad witnessed similar scenes at Tank Bund and the vicinity after India won the Champions Trophy in March this year, and the police were severely criticised by the BJP for the crackdown on revellers.