Karnataka Cricket Body Blames Government, RCB, Says We Don't Deal With Fans

The Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) on Friday approached the High Court for an urgent hearing against the First Information Report (FIR) filed against it in connection with the recent stampede outside Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, during Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB)'s IPL victory celebrations earlier this week.

NDTV has accessed a copy of the petition filed by KSCA president Raghuram Bhat, secretary A Shankar, and treasurer ES Jairam, which argues that the FIR represented a serious miscarriage of justice and seeks to pin responsibility on the wrong parties. The High Court is scheduled to hear the matter at 2:30 pm today.

According to the petition, the celebration event was convened on the orders of the Karnataka government.

"Celebrating the victory was in fact at the call of the Government," the petition said, adding that the felicitation was held at the Vidhana Soudha in the presence of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, his deputy DK Shivakumar, and several Cabinet ministers. Senior bureaucrats and senior police officials were also in attendance, it said.

The KSCA also placed the responsibility for crowd control and related arrangements on RCB, the event organisers, and the police. It claimed that KSCA, as an entity that merely rents out the venue for such events and governs cricket in Karnataka, was not involved in managing spectators or fan access.

"The gate management and crowd management was not the responsibility of KSCA," the petition said. "It was of RCB, the organiser, and the police."

The association alleged that attempts to frame its senior office-bearers constitute a "serious failure of justice" on the part of the police and government. 

"In any case, framing the Petitioners as accused is a serious failure of justice at the hands of police and Government," it said. "The offences alleged cannot be traced to any actions of the Petitioners even remotely."

The petition stressed that KSCA's authority is strictly limited to cricket administration and stadium management, and does not extend to public-facing or crowd-related matters during external events.

"The KSCA Managing Committee only handles the venue of Chinnaswamy Stadium on rentals and controls cricket in Karnataka. It does not deal with the audience, spectators, or fans," it said.

The development came amid police's efforts to trace and arrest Shankar and Jairam, who have gone missing ever since the FIR was registered in the case. Earlier in the day, police said four people, including an RCB official, were arrested but the two KSCA officials were not found in their houses. 

According to sources, Shankar is a close confidant of Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar.

Eleven people were killed and more than 50 were injured in the stampede that broke out when a large number of people thronged to the stadium to participate in the RCB's first ever victory celebrations on Wednesday. More than 60 people were injured in the incident.

According to the police, Nikhil Sosale, the head of marketing for RCB, was among those arrested on Friday. He was on his way to Mumbai when he was arrested from Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru, at around 6.30am. 

Nikhil Sosale (extreme right), head of marketing for RCB, was arrested on Friday.

Mr Sosale handles all promotional activities of the RCB and is the main link between the players and the franchise. He also handles the team's social media handles.

The remaining arrested people are members of event management company DNA Entertainment Private Limited - Sunil Mathew (Vice President, handles IPL events for DNA), Kiran and Sumanth.

Police said the arrests were made during an overnight operation carried out by the Central Crime Branch under the leadership of Deputy Commissioner of Police Akshay. The accused are likely to be handed over to the Crime Investigation Department today. 

On Thursday, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah suspended Bengaluru police commissioner B Dayananda and several other senior police officials in connection with the incident. 

The state government's action came amidst an all-out attack by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, which has demanded the resignations of Siddaramaiah and Mr Shivakumar.

Earlier, Mr Shivakumar turned emotional while talking about the tragedy and said that Bengaluru has lost its image due to the incident.