Former India cricketer Madan Lal has slammed Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) for poor planning of their Indian Premier League 2025 (IPL 2025) victory celebrations. RCB had invited their fans to the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru to be a part of their celebrations.
A large crowd gathered at the venue to be a part of the felicitation ceremony for the RCB players as they beat Punjab Kings (PBKS) by six runs in the final to win their maiden title. However, complete mismanagement of the crowd led to the death of 11 people, and nearly 50 were injured as a deadly stampede broke out outside the stadium.
Following the incident, Madan Lal slammed the IPL franchise, asking what was the hurry behind organising the event as it claimed innocent lives?
“You celebrated in Ahmedabad the previous night—what was the rush to organize a grand event in Bengaluru the next day? Eleven lives were lost unnecessarily,” Madan Lal was quoted as saying by Herald Goa.
Several fans had turned up to watch their favourite stars getting felicitated as a special ceremony was organised inside the stadium. The celebratory event, which had drawn over two lakh supporters to a stadium with a capacity of 35,000, was cut short to just 20 minutes after organisers were informed of the incident unfolding outside.
As the crowd swelled, the situation turned chaotic. A stampede broke out, leaving at least seven people dead and many others injured. One video showed a policeman carrying an injured spectator to an ambulance, while another person lay unconscious on the ground as bystanders rushed to help.
Meanwhile, Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah has said the state government hadn’t planned the felicitation event, and it was solely done by RCB and KSCA.
“It is not us. We didn’t make any request regarding the celebration to RCB and KSCA. They organised this. We felt that the government should felicitate. Just because it was a Bengaluru team, we felt that we should be a part of the celebration. That’s all. We didn’t ask that we would do this but it’s RCB and KSCA who brought the team to Bengaluru for celebrations,” he said while speaking to reporters.