Bengaluru stampede: Why police chief B Dayananda, 4 others were suspended over RCB fan deaths

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday night announced the suspension of three IPS officers – Bengaluru Police Commissioner B Dayananda, Additional Commissioner of Police (West) Vikash Kumar Vikash, and Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) Shekar H Tekkannavar – as well as Assistant Commissioner of Police (Cubbon Park), C Balakrishna, and Cubbon Park Police Inspector A K Girish over the stadium tragedy.

Though the CEO of RCB informed Dayananda on June 3 about holding the victory parade and celebrations on June 4, “the office of Police Commissioner failed to give written reply to the organizers, rejecting the permission on the grounds of lack of time to prepare for such a huge event”, the government’s June 5 suspension order says.

“The RCB and the Cricket Association (Karnataka State Cricket Association) went ahead to tweet about the celebrations and inviting the fans to Chinnaswamy stadium without going through the usual practice of issue of tickets or passes,” the order adds.

“Despite the knowledge of these developments and expectation of huge turnout of cricket fans by the police, steps were not taken to either have the event organized systematically at the stadium or give adequate information to the public on necessary precautions for their safety or provide additional police force for appropriate crowd management,” it further says.

“Further, the above situation was not discussed with the higher-ups for taking necessary guidance and advice in the matter. As a result, the situation went out of control and brought a lot of misery, loss of precious life and embarrassment to the government,” the order states.

The conduct of the IPS officers was “in gross violation of AIS (Conduct) Rules, and that of the ACP and PI is in gross violation of Karnataka State Police (Disciplinary Proceedings) Rules, 1965”, says the suspension order.

Denial of permission was communicated, say police sources

According to police sources, though the decision to reject the permission for the victory parade was communicated to the KSCA and RCB, a parallel decision by the Karnataka government to hold its own felicitation of the RCB players at the Vidhana Soudha—despite police reservations—resulted in the assumption of a deemed permission for both events.

The decision of the Karnataka government to hold a parallel felicitation resulted in the drowning out of police communications of the cancellation of the victory parade and the holding of a public event at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, police sources said.

In the end, the police resources were stretched thin by the two parallel events, resulting in a lack of crowd control and emergency measures at the cricket stadium.

The Bengaluru police, who registered an FIR on Thursday for culpable homicide, causing voluntary hurt and unlawful assembly against the RCB, the KSCA, and event managers DNA Network, arrested an RCB marketing head and a senior DNA official on Friday.

Police had sought time for security, traffic diversions: FIR in stampede case

The police arrested Nikhil Sosale, the marketing head of the RCB management, and Sunil Mathew of the event management company DNA at the Kempegowda International Airport on Friday morning.

According to the police FIR in the stampede case, Shubendhu Ghosh, Chief Executive Officer of KSCA, had approached the Cubbon Park police on June 3 requesting permission to allow celebrations (if RCB wins the IPL ) in the Chinnaswamy cricket stadium and for security.

According to the FIR, the police told the KSCA official that if RCB won, lakhs of fans would gather, and the police who were deployed for night security duty would not be in a position to provide security. The KSCA administration was informed that the police would require time to arrange security and traffic diversions, says the FIR.

Though the police denied permission, the RCB, KSCA and DNA went ahead with announcing the celebrations on June 4, resulting in the stampede and deaths, says the FIR.

The Opposition BJP and JD(S) in Karnataka have accused the Congress government of making police officers the scapegoats for the stampede tragedy while overlooking the role of top ministers and officials in the government in facilitating the two parallel events to honour the privately owned RCB team for winning the IPL.

“Why did people get confused by the repeated statements that there was an RCB team procession in an open vehicle from Vidhana Soudha to Chinnaswamy Stadium? Why was there no clarification about this until the evening? Who was pressuring the police not to take a clear decision?” R Ashoka, the BJP Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, said.