K’taka now blames police for stampede

{ HC HEARING ON RCB STAMPEDE

- Ayesha Arvind

The Karnataka government on Wednesday told the high court that its own police were at fault for the stampede at the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) victory celebrations on June 4 that killed 11 people and injured over 50 others, changing its previous position that the IPL franchise was to blame.

The State argued before a bench of Justices SG Pandit and TM Nadaf that the police should have formally objected to the event and that they should have refused to provide security for the event since no official permission was granted for it. The police reports to the state government.

The above submissions come less than six weeks after the government, in a status report filed before another division bench of the court, in a connected suo motu PIL, defended the police's action and their response to the stampede as swift and necessary, and placed the entire blame on RCB.