Karnataka govt blames RCB for Bengaluru stampede, refers to Kohli's online message too

The report on the stampede that killed 11 people has been made public by the state government following the direction of the Karnataka High Court.

The report says RCB, the franchise that won the Indian Premier League (IPL) title for the first time in 18 years, only informed the police about the possibility of a parade but did not take any permission.

"In the present case, no applications in the prescribed formats were submitted to the licensing authority by the applicant/organiser. In the absence of such information required under the prescribed formats, it was not possible for the licence-granting authority to consider the request positively.

"Accordingly, the PI of the Cubbon Park Police Station did not grant the permission to the request made by KSCA on 03.06.2025 at around 6:30pm, due to a lack of information regarding the expected approximate gathering, arrangements made, possible bottlenecks, and the like, for both possible outcomes of the final match, i.e., whether RCB won or lost," the report has been quoted by Hindustan Times.

The government referred to a public announcement of the parade by RCB on social media at 7:01 am on June 4.

The government also referred to a video message by RCB star batter Virat Kohli who went live at 8:55 am on June 4 encouraging his fans to join the mega celebrations.

"This post mentioned, for the first and only time, that free passes (limited entry) were available on shop.royalchallengers.com, and until this point, there had been no information regarding the disbursement of passes, implying that the event was open to all based on RCB’s prior posts," the report added.

"Around 3,00,000 individuals gathered in this limited space, far exceeding the stadium’s capacity of merely 35,000. Such a crowd concentrated at the entry gates of the stadium following posts made by the RCB/organisers on their official handles stating that entry to the event would be free for all," it added.

The court said confusion related to the entry system led to panic when the crowd swelled.

The government said poor gate management prompted the crowd to break open the gates to enter.

"As restless crowds gathered at the gates, the situation deteriorated further when the organisers/RCB/DNA/KSCA responsible for gate management failed to open the gates at the appropriate time and in an unsynchronised manner. This prompted the crowd to force their way into the stadium by breaking open Gate Nos. 1, 2, and 21, due to complete mismanagement by the organisers," he added.

The government blamed RCB's poor planning and a lack of coordination for the stampede.