WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR 11 DEATHS?

Stampede Not An Accident – Predictable, Preventable but Ignored

A CELEBRATION THAT ENDED IN DEATH

On the night of June 4, 2025, Bangalore’s streets were meant to echo with victory chants. Instead, they were filled with sirens and screams. As RCB fans flooded public roads to celebrate, a stampede claimed eleven lives and left dozens injured. The tragedy was not the result of chaos — but of systemic neglect, driven by a deeper, deadlier truth: insensitivity to human life has become institutionalized.

PREDICTABLE, PREVENTABLE — AND IGNORED

Crowds of this scale are not unprecedented. Lakhs of people on the streets require coordinated planning, designated safety zones, and trained personnel. Instead, there was nothing. No effective crowd management, no emergency response protocols, no meaningful preparation. This wasn’t a failure of imagination — it was a failure of empathy, of basic responsibility. And it cost people their lives.

When even a minor scuffle or push can trigger panic, and when thousands are packed into tight urban spaces without direction, a stampede is not an accident — it’s an inevitability.

THE POOR ALWAYS PAY THE PRICE

The tragedy also revealed a cruel divide: those who plan are never the ones who perish. It is always the poor — street vendors, daily wage earners, working-class fans — who are caught in the crush, while those in power remain insulated. The privileged cheer from high-rises; the powerless are left to bleed on the pavement.

Celebrations are not the problem. Disregard for human lives is.

INSENSITIVITY AT THE CORE

The real culprit here is not just the absence of planning — it is the absence of value for human life. A culture where governance has become immune to suffering. Where paperwork outweighs people. Where fear of innovation and aversion to responsibility smother any real effort at reform. The system isn’t broken — it’s been allowed to function this way for too long.

ACCOUNTABILITY MUST BE NON-NEGOTIABLE

What’s most disturbing is that, like so many other tragedies, no one will likely be punished. No resignations. No structural changes. Just statements, silence, and the same hollow reassurances. Meanwhile, the families of the dead will be left to grieve in obscurity — victims not only of a stampede but of a system that refuses to learn.

This cannot continue.

There must be clear, public, and legal accountability. Officials who failed in their duty — whether through incompetence, negligence, or indifference — must face consequences. Not symbolic warnings. Real punishment. Real resignations. Real reform.

Until those in charge begin to see people as more than names on a crowd estimate, until the machinery of governance stops treating death as collateral damage, stampedes will not stop. They will only move from city to city, event to event, leaving more graves in their wake.

BANGALORE’S TRAGEDY MUST BE A TURNING POINT

Bangalore’s streets became a danger zone not because people were celebrating — but because insensitivity was in charge. Eleven lives lost must not be just a statistic. They must be a line in the sand. A moment when citizens say: enough.

Punish the guilty. Protect the people. Prove that human life matters — not just in speeches, but in action.