Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court had posed a set of nine questions to the Congress government in the state over the stampede at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. During a felicitation for the IPL-winning Royal Challengers Bengaluru team on Wednesday, the stampede took away 11 lives.
The HC has sought answers from the state by June 10 are. The questions were posed by a division bench headed by acting Chief Justice V Kameswar Rao and Justice C M Joshi as the court took suo motu cognizance of the incident. These questions are:
- Who decided to hold the victory celebration? In what manner and when?
- Was any permission sought to organise the event?
- Was any SOP (standard operating procedure) formulated to manage a crowd of 50,000 and above in any sports event and celebrations of this nature?
- What steps were taken to regulate the traffic?
- What steps were taken to regulate the public/crowd?
- What medical and other facilities were arranged at the venue?
- Was any assessment made in advance on the number of attendees?
- Whether persons injured were given immediate medical attention by the medical experts at the venue or not? If not, then why?
- How much time was taken to take the injured to the hospital?
Suspension of cops draw flak: Cops scapegoat for collective failure?
The Karnataka government’s decision to suspend Bengaluru Police Commissioner B Dayananda following the June 4 stampede has drawn sharp criticism from former police officers and opposition leaders. They described the move as hasty, unjust, and politically motivated in various media reports.
“It’s an unfortunate incident of suspending a commissioner without preliminary inquiry and fact finding. Police were only a small part of this event. Suspension of the commissioner is not the right way to do it,” former Bengaluru commissioner Megharikh told Hindustan Times.
Retired IPS officer Bhaskar Rao, another former commissioner, accused the state’s leadership of using the police as scapegoat to deflect public anger.