Bengaluru: “I don’t know what we did wrong…we had tickets,” an exasperated RCB supporter wondered outside the Chinnaswamy stadium, watching what was meant to be a day of celebration become a day of mourning after 11 fans were killed in a mad scramble to attend the team’s IPL victory party here.Thirty three of the team’s injured supporters had to be hospitalised after a chaotic day.”When one organises a victory celebration of this magnitude…safety and security measures need to be taken,” BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia told PTI, taking note of the lack of preparedness to deal with the lakhs who crowded the streets, desperate to catch a glimpse of their favourite stars, including the enigmatic Virat kohli.The tickets for the hastily-arranged engagement programme were sold in a jiffy, but the fans crowded all the gates 12, 13 (main gates) and 10 (club house entrance) with not enough security to control them. The number swelled to unexpected levels around 3.30pm and it forced the police and stadium security officials to close all the gates to prevent the ticket-less from squeezing in along with the ones who had valid tickets.”We came to watch our stars. I bought tickets for the function but was not even able to enter the stadium. Police suddenly blocked all the roads and closed all the entrances to the venue, and suddenly they started lathi-charging near the main gate,” said Prashant Shetty, a post-graduate student who came along with a few of his friends.”I don’t know what we did wrong. We were invited for the function, bought tickets but in the end got beaten up and abused. Terrible day for fans like us,” he added. At around 4.30 pm many more came from the nearby Cubbon Park metro station, worsening the situation and the police had to resort to mild use of force to disperse the huge gathering.At Gate No. 10, the situation was grimmer as women and children were shoved around forcefully, and even this reporter was pushed to a corner by a police official with a lathi who also hurled some swear words in local dialect. Several ticket-holders had no choice but to make a retreat from the venue albeit thankful that they escaped unscathed from what became a stampede.Even from a distance, it was disturbing to see women fainting and some others getting crushed under the feet of jostling fans. The fan engagement function lasted close to an hour and the team went back to the hotel around 6.30 pm but the fans still remained near the stadium creating further traffic block and chaos, before slowly moving away after a tragic day.
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