Eleven Dead, Inquiry Closed
NEWS / Eleven Dead, Inquiry Closed
4 June 2025, Gate 3, M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. Royal Challengers Bengaluru had just won their first IPL. A crowd that was not supposed to be that size met a gate that was not built for it. Eleven people died. More than fifty were injured. The Hindu, later, put the injured at 56 in one count, 71 in the commission report. The dead do not need a second number. There were eleven.
15 July 2026: Karnataka closed the departmental inquiries against three IPS officers. B. Dayananda, then city commissioner. Vikash Kumar Vikash, then additional commissioner. Shekhar H. Tekkannavar, then DCP Central. Exonerated under the All India Services rules. Tekkannavar got a warning: act responsibly, do not let it happen again. The other two got a clean file. They had been suspended the day after the crush, reinstated weeks later, and left in process for a year. The process is now over. Nobody in uniform is facing a departmental finding for eleven deaths.
The CID still wants to file a chargesheet against Royal Challengers Sports Pvt. Ltd., DNA Entertainment, and the Karnataka State Cricket Association. The High Court, on 8 July 2025, told them not to file it without permission. They lodged a copy on 17 March 2026 and are still waiting. Justice Michael D’Cunha’s commission had already held the organisers responsible, called the event unauthorised, and said the police failed to stop it. A commission report is not a conviction. A frozen chargesheet is not justice delayed as a metaphor. It is justice not happening.
On 24 July The Hindu quoted Sridhar K.T., brother of Shravan K.T., a dental student among the eleven: “Over a year after the deaths, nobody has been held culpable for the tragedy. Neither has a chargesheet been filed, nor have the officers whom the government only suspended been held accountable. Indian Premier League matches were held at the same stadium this year. Life has moved on for everyone, but us.” Those are his sentences. They are still accurate a month later.
IPL 2026 final: Bengaluru beat Gujarat. Patidar dedicated the cup to the dead. If the player does not load, open it on YouTube.
31 May 2026, Ahmedabad. Bengaluru won the title again. Rajat Patidar dedicated the cup to the people killed in the crush. Dedication is what a captain can do with a microphone. It does not file a chargesheet. It does not reopen a departmental inquiry. It does not put a name in a dock. A clean chit for the police and a High Court stay on the organisers is the actual result of the year after eleven funerals. If that reads like an ending, it is only an ending for the files. The families still have the same eleven names.