Eleven people died and 47 were injured in the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) parade stampede in Bengaluru on Wednesday evening. (image: x.com/sw_17_ty/)

Bengaluru, Karnataka: Eleven people died and 47 were injured in the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) parade stampede in Bengaluru on Wednesday evening. The much-awaited victory and the joyous celebration following has turned to a tragic event due to overcrowding near Chinnaswamy stadium.

Confusions regarding the victory parade are observed to be the major reason for the incident. On Wednesday morning, the RCB management announced that they would hold a victory parade in an open bus from Vidhana Soudha to the Chinnaswamy stadium, nearly 1 km away, and after that event at the stadium will be held for which limited free passes would be available online.

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However, the city police never gave clearance to the victory parade. At approximately 11:56 am on Wednesday, the traffic police notified that there would be no parade. But, according to the reports, more than two lakh people were brought onto the street, within a 1-kilometre radius, and it eventually led to a stampede.

The city police opposed to the parade citing security and crowd management concerns and asked the victory celebrations to be held at the Stadium with limited entry. There was dearth of time to prepare for a large crowd in the central business district (CBD), senior official said to The Hindu.

“There was a frenzy on the city’s streets on Tuesday night, and our personnel were already tired doing bandobast all night. There was very little time to prepare. Against the police advice, the political leadership was insistent on holding an open-air event at the Vidhana Soudha and a victory parade as well,” The Hindu quotes a senior official as saying

The Police officials investigating the incident stated that crowd was unaware that the victory parade had been cancelled and expected that after the felicitation, the open bus would head towards the stadium. Since many did not possess tickets to enter the stadium they hoped to see the cricket stars on the bus, but team did leave for the event in a closed bus, Indian Express reports.

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The confusion and chaos turned into tragedy when Gate 3 of the stadium partially opened and a crowd, including both ticket holders and those without tickets, attempted to barge into the site. Though the team management earlier announced that entry into the stadium would be based on free passes, which people had to download from their website, it was not imposed.

Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah refrained from defending the tragic incident and stated that the turnout was far beyond the government had anticipated. “No one expected such a huge crowd. The stadium has a capacity of only 35,000 people, but 2-3 lakh people came,” CM said.