Bengaluru was ready. WhatsApp groups were buzzing with potential plans, and not the kinds that get washed down by lethargy and red lines on Google Maps. These were serious plans. Someone fetched a list of screenings, someone else a list of bars with projector screens. A matrix of experience versus access was drawn up.
First call: The RCB Bar and Cafe. Placed in central Bengaluru, a leather ball’s throw from Cubbon Park, a five-minute auto ride away from the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Prime location for such a game. A telephone call later, we were informed of a cover charge of Rs 25,000 a table. And we’d have to move quickly – even those were evaporating quickly. Another bar at MG Road quoted Rs 10,000 per table.
With every passing conversation, I got the sense that the city was coiled for this evening, ready to shed 17 years of weight in one glorious explosion.
It was June 3.
The Indian Premier League wears its youth badly, or so its critics claim. Its mannerisms – the noise, the aesthetics, the shameless commerce – offend those who treasure cricket’s idyllic traditions. A senior journalist I was once on a call with refused to engage on IPL-adjacent topics because “IPL is not cricket”.
But tell that to the 19,000 who turned up for a Chennai Super Kings training session in 2019. Or the thousands who pack the Chinnaswamy Stadium for Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s annual unveiling – an event consisting of nothing more than players in full kit taking a ceremonial lap.
Call it gaudy, vulgar, or any adjective from a Victorian-era thesaurus, but the IPL has seized the 21st century Indian cricket fan by the heart.
At the pub where I finally secured a table, for a fraction of the cover charges getting thrown around the city, I entered to find the staff decked in replica RCB jerseys. Half the patrons inside wore the same, unmistakable colours. The manager mentioned, almost casually, that every table for the evening had been booked six hours in advance.
This was RCB's first final since 2016’s heartbreak, when they’d entered as star-studded emperors only to find themselves face-first in the dirt, steps from the throne. But this year, the universe seemed to be tilting their way.
The DJ hunched over his console all evening, tracks loaded and finger poised, waiting for the precise moment to unleash cult MTV classics from the 2000s. The Backstreet Boys were back, Guns N’ Roses thundered through, Blue spoke about one love. Then, as Punjab Kings captain Shreyas Iyer’s wicket fell, he pivoted seamlessly to the classic rock hook from RCB’s official anthem. The pub transformed into a mini stadium. My flatmate, whose interest in cricket barely registers as a pulse, found himself swept into the “Aar See Bee!” chorus.
Outside the round-arched windows, fireworks erupted midway through the final over, just as Virat Kohli’s eyes began to moisten. Bon Jovi’s It’s My Life held hands with Josh Hazelwood and delivered the final flourish to a game that had more than a line of destiny written into its scripts.
Bengaluru’s moment had come.
On the ride home, the streets were beginning to swell. I could hear the sound of a city taking flight, fireworks lighting up the inky 1 am darkness. Within an hour, all of Bengaluru’s major arteries would be clogged in RCB red. Nearly 1,600 km north, inside the home dressing room at Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi Stadium, Virat Kohli was already speaking of tomorrow: “It will really sink in when we celebrate it with the city tomorrow.” He seemed sure of the plans.
Perhaps he meant the standard airport reception that greets triumphant teams in India. It was too early for anything grander. But by 7 am the next morning, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru broke my misconception. On their social media channels, they announced an open top bus parade between the Vidhana Soudha to Chinnaswamy Stadium. A mile of song and dance, offering the city a chance to bathe in the reflected glow of that thick, gold trophy they’d craved for 17 years.
By that time, Twitter was teeming with videos from the previous night, of a city drunk on its moment of catharsis. Not all of it was pretty. Cars were mounted, bystanders were pulled into dance, fireworks were set off near residential areas and hospitals. The city’s police force lost their sleep, dousing sparks across the city until late in the night.
June 4 was not going to merely be a reception at the airport.
Within hours of RCB’s announcement, Bengaluru Police Commissioner B Dayananda delivered the cold shower: no open bus parade would be permitted. RCB were free to hold any event inside Chinnaswamy Stadium, but the roads were off limits.
The backlash was immediate, visceral. The city had waited so long; it deserved to have its day out.
***
Bhaskar Rao has served in the police force for 33 years, including a long spell as the police commissioner of Bengaluru. I’m on a call with him, and his anguish is showing.
“Why the rush? You have to give time to the forces, plan properly. There was a huge frenzy the previous night. It was clear that the city had reacted with emotion. The celebrations were going on till early morning.”
Tarutr Malhotra has been a Bangalore boy all his life. For 17 seasons, he had ridden the wave of euphoria with RCB, only to crashland into despair every time. Early in the afternoon hours of June 4, still hungover from adrenaline, he made his way to the Cubbon Park metro station, from where all roads led to Chinnaswamy Stadium.
“As soon as you got down from the metro station, you got a sense of a large crowd congregating for the day’s events,” he tells me in a phone conversation. “But there wasn’t any organisation, any idea of what was going on. A swelling crowd was just going off on hearsay and rumours. That said, the lack of police barricades, medical tents, or water stations was very noticeable.”
He spoke to a couple of police officers en route. One told him, “not happening”; another said, “it’s on.”
Bhaskar Rao emphasises the importance of planning such events. “See, in some cases, events can happen in a haphazard manner. You have to then firstly get everyone on the table. From police force to medical resources to hospitals, logistics, event management, everyone. In a metro city, planning is not up for negotiation. The rush from the political dispensation to have their moment in the sun sent everything awry.”
By 3 pm, nearly 1,00,000 people had compressed into the mile of space between the Vidhana Soudha and Chinnaswamy Stadium. That number soared with every passing minute. Despite the police warnings, RCB’s social media team doubled down on their plans, posting again about “Free Victory Day passes” in bold type, burying “limited entry” in the fine print. By then, metro stations near the venue had downed their shutters.
The crowd near Chinnaswamy Stadium – already tense, restless, breathless – kept receiving conflicting reports about their chances of getting to see their heroes in the flesh. So they pushed. And pushed some more.
By 3 pm, nearly 1,00,000 people had compressed into the mile of space between the Vidhana Soudha and Chinnaswamy Stadium. That number soared with every passing minute. Despite the police warnings, RCB’s social media team doubled down on their plans, posting again about “Free Victory Day passes” in bold type.
At 4 pm, the dam broke. Chinnaswamy’s Gate 3 opened partially, and a large mass, comprising both ticket holders and hopefuls, attempted to swarm into the premises. Eyewitness accounts speak of people pushing, pulling, falling to the ground, falling over each other, getting trampled without anyone around to bring them to order. Before long, the same scene was unfolding at Gate 7 and Gate 14.
Inayath, a resident of Lingarajapuram and an eyewitness to the incident, told Indian Express: “Everyone just flooded in. In the chaos, some people fell on the ground. There was nobody to control the crowd or offer help.”
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The way people were crushing in. Where were the ambulances, the stretchers, the medical kiosks? I feel that’s where strong leadership is important. As armed forces, we don’t get to say ‘Can’t do it’ when you see a situation already materialising. You have to be strong and get things in order before they go wrong,” Bhaskar Rao tells me.
Down at the Vidhana Soudha, Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka DK Shivakumar was robing the triumphant RCB players in traditional turbans and shawls. Virat Kohli, who has worn the Bengaluru red for his entire career, lifted the gleaming golden trophy and pointed at the congregation in front of him. “This is yours too,” he seemed to be saying.
Except not everyone who had come to see him was left standing anymore.
The news kept trickling like blood from a wound. One death, then three, five. The injured count multiplied exponentially.
***
In November 2021, days after eight people were killed in the Astroworld Festival in Houston, Keith Still, a visiting professor of crowd science at the University of Suffolk, explained crowd mechanics to NPR:
“As people struggle to get up, arms and legs get twisted together. Blood supply starts to be reduced to the brain. It takes 30 seconds before you lose consciousness, and around about six minutes, you're into compressive or restrictive asphyxia. That's generally the attributed cause of death – not crushing, but suffocation.”
The RCB team had reached the stadium, where celebrations continued – song, dance, speeches. Queen’s We Are The Champions poured through the stadium’s speakers, joined in the chorus by 30,000 parched throats.
Virat Kohli was called to the dais for a speech. This was RCB’s week, Bengaluru’s week, but really it was Kohli’s moment. Eighteen seasons in the same jersey, many as the tournament’s most expensive, most valuable player. While everything around and within him rode sine waves of form, his runs and intensity remained constant. RCB fans would enter the season blind, but sure of one thing: Virat Kohli would give every ounce of his energy. The golden robe was well-deserved.
Outside: seven dead, then 10; 25 injured.
Nikhil Naz, a senior reporter who had seen the burgeoning crowd outside before heading inside for the event, mentions here how there was little to no information pouring in about the gravity of the situation. “There is no chance that the players could’ve known,” he says.
Tarutr was already moving away from the crowd. Somewhere along Church Street, he found breathing space in a cafe, even as the streets outside were packed with people in RCB jerseys moving towards the stadium. “No megaphones, no directions, no barricades still, a good hour or two after the first stampede situation.”
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, revealing an alarming case of myopia, indicated that the government had severely underestimated the turnout.
“There were around 2-3 lakh people on the streets, including 1 lakh near the Vidhana Soudha,” he said. “We, or the Karnataka State Cricket Association, did not expect such a huge crowd. The stadium capacity is around 35,000. We anticipated that there would be a little more than that,” he said.
Tarutr has zero time for that claim.
“All season you have hyped us up. Eighteen this, 18 that. RCB reached the playoffs at least a week and more in advance. They confirmed their finals spot three days in advance. The visuals from the night of June 3 were as clear a sign as any that the city had an emotional outpouring,” he says. “Besides, you saw the pictures and videos from last year’s T20 World Cup trophy parade. How are you surprised by the crowd now?”
At last count: 11 dead, 47 injured. Most of them students.
***
The machinery of damage control sprung into motion. The chief minister ordered a magisterial probe and the deputy chief minister sobbed outside Bowring Hospital. RCB and the Karnataka State Cricket Association jointly announced a Rs 10 lakh cash compensation for each grieving family. RCB alone earned Rs 20 crore for winning the IPL, placing their valuation of a life lost at roughly 0.0025 percent of the winners’ cheque. The condolence message on their social media channels reeked of predictable corporate apathy.
:
— Royal Challengers Bengaluru (@RCBTweets) June 4, 2025
We are deeply anguished by the unfortunate incidents that have come to light through media reports regarding public gatherings all over Bengaluru in anticipation of the team’s arrival this… pic.twitter.com/C0RsCUzKtQ
Where does the buck stop? Well, that depends on whom you ask.
B Dayananda, the police commissioner who’d issued the official refusal for the parade, got axed first. After him fell the additional commissioner, the DCP, the ACP, an inspector – suspensions down the entire chain of command that had vehemently opposed any roadshow.
Bhaskar Rao has his criticisms of the force, but thinks they are getting the rough end of the stick now. “The police leadership should’ve been stronger, cracked the whip, but now they’ve been turned into scapegoats for the oversight of the political dispensation.”
Permission for the celebration had been explicitly denied. The police had foreseen what the organisers chose to ignore – the impossibility of containing a city’s 17-year hunger within orderly queues. Yet the show went on, despite every warning and official resistance.
A senior police officer tells Indian Express how RCB’s unilateral decision to hold a victory parade without police permission, paired with the state government’s eleventh-hour decision to bask in RCB’s glory, choreographed the tragedy of frenzied fans.
“We were stretched thin in terms of resources. We were virtually handling four events simultaneously on that day – the arrival of the RCB team at the airport, their safe transport to the team hotel, to the government felicitation ceremony and finally to the RCB event at the Chinnaswamy Stadium,” the officer said.
On June 5, the day after the celebration turned into catastrophe, the Bengaluru police filed an FIR against RCB, the Karnataka State Cricket Association, and DNA Entertainment Networks, the event management company that orchestrated the fatal festivities. The KSCA, predictably, denied all culpability even with evidence to the contrary.
On June 6, Nikhil Sosale, the head of marketing at RCB, whose team oversaw and managed every announcement made on that fateful day, was arrested at the Bengaluru airport. Three staff members of DNA Entertainment were also detained by the police.
***
Arrests, detentions and suspensions will do more for optics than for accountability and change. A quick search for crowd management mishaps in the last three years – or just the last 1,000 days, even – reveals a faultline that stretches through the country, indifferent to parties in power.
May 2025 – Goa Lairai Devi temple
Six devotees died during Shirgao’s annual fire-walking festival when a scuffle on a narrow, unlit road sparked panic among 1,50,000 attendees. Poor pathway design and lack of emergency exits hindered escape, prompting Goa’s CM to order infrastructure audits for religious sites.
February 2025 – New Delhi railway station
Delays in trains to the Maha Kumbh Mela created overcrowding on footbridges at Platform 14, triggering a stampede that killed 18. Misleading announcements about a special train worsened the surge, with 1,500 general tickets sold hourly despite inadequate infrastructure.
January 2025 – Prayagraj Maha Kumbh Mela
A midnight rush during Mauni Amavasya bathing rituals led to 30 deaths at Sangam Ghat after barricades collapsed near VIP zones. Hundreds were injured. Hospital and police records suggest the deaths could be as high as 79.
July 2024 – Hathras satsang
A self-styled guru’s overcrowded prayer meeting killed 121, mostly women and children, after a dust storm caused suffocation in a single-exit venue. Despite permissions for 80,000, 250,000 attended, exposing flawed risk assessments and organiser accountability gaps.
March 2023 – Indore stepwell collapse
Thirty-six worshippers died when an illegally constructed stepwell cover collapsed during Rama Navami at Beleshwar Mahadev temple. Authorities had previously warned about structural violations, highlighting systemic corruption in permitting unsafe religious modifications.
January 2022 – Mata Vaishno Devi
A New Year’s Eve stampede killed 12 pilgrims in Jammu amid Covid-19 protocol breaches, as 50,000 crowded pathways meant for 35,000. A police lathi charge escalated chaos, underscoring poor crowd-calibration strategies at major shrines.
These are just from the top search results on Google. The more you dig, the more you find that crowd management in India is never quite taken seriously. And when it comes to culturally significant occasions, it’s even worse. At any large-scale religious event, concert, or stadium in the country, the entry and exit process is rarely ever smooth unless you’re paying through the nose for VIP enclosures.
I spoke to Dinesh, a seasoned marketer, advertiser, and stadium-visitor based out of Mumbai. If there’s a game in town, you are likely to find Dinesh inside. Last year, Dinesh went to Wankhede Stadium to partake in the T20 World Cup trophy celebrations.
“I got lucky because I reached early. So I didn’t really have to feel the crush. But, once the gates opened, no one checked anything and a massive crowd just pushed in,” he says. “The visuals were very scary. Someone dropped their phone, someone else their watch, but they couldn’t pick it up or even bend. And this is hours, hours before the parade actually started.”
The life of an average citizen in this country has never been cheaper...If Nikhil Sosale’s arrest sticks, RCB will get a new head of marketing. The chief minister and deputy chief minister of Karnataka will wiggle out unscathed. Next year, at the World Cup and IPL and every home game, stadiums will continue to pack themselves full.
Naveen lives in Bengaluru but hopscotches across the country for cricket. His view is bleaker, and I find myself nodding.
“In India, you sadly have the worst of all worlds. The access into one of the gates of Chinnaswamy Stadium involves navigating a massive tree on the path, and I read somewhere that people actually tried to climb that tall tree to get ahead of the crowd during the RCB celebrations,” he says. “The new stadium in Ahmedabad has pathetic access for the general public, with a single corridor for nearly one lakh people to use to get in and out. You get a passionate, male-dominated group of fans with a limited sense of personal space and etiquette, and put them into such poorly planned civic infrastructure and you have a disaster waiting to happen.”
The life of an average citizen in this country has never been cheaper. The Rs 10 lakh that the KSCA and RCB are paying grieving families is already bumped up from the Rs 5 lakh they’d initially planned. If Nikhil Sosale’s arrest sticks, RCB will get a new head of marketing. The chief minister and deputy chief minister of Karnataka will wiggle out unscathed. Next year, at the World Cup and IPL and every home game, stadiums will continue to pack themselves full.
Next year, the IPL final will be held at Chinnaswamy Stadium. In all likelihood, the season-opener too. And that frame – of a packed Chinnaswamy Stadium waiting to crown the next kingdom – will illustrate India’s greatest strength and its deepest shame.
When he's not lurking on Swiggy or Zomato, Sarthak Dev is a musician and writer. He publishes weekly essays on sports and its wider context here. You can find his music here.
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