Rapper Chandan Shetty on RCB victory parade: Everyone involved is responsible for the tragedy

Like any Royal Challengers Bengaluru fan, Kannada rapper, composer and actor Chandan Shetty too wanted to be a part of the team’s maiden IPL victory. For Chandan, who had written the 2025 season anthem for the team, We Own the Night, it would be a special moment and when he reached out to the event organizers of the RCB victory parade, he was asked to get to Gate 3 of Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Expecting traffic and no parking facilities near the stadium, Chandan parked his car on JC Road and walked for nearly 4 km, only to encounter a sea of people near the venue. “I couldn’t even get anywhere close to Gate 3; that was the kind of crowd. There was an air of gaiety, though, at the time. All the gates were closed and the police officials deployed there were trying their best to control the crowd. In fact, at some point, a lathi landed on me too, because the gathering had slowly become uncontrollable,” explained Chandan, while speaking to News First Kannada.

Chandan Shetty: Making it a free for all event was biggest mistake

The music man reckons that it is impossible to pin the blame on any 1 or 2 agencies. Instead, he says, everyone involved is at fault for the tragedy that unfolded. “The biggest mistake is that the victory parade was announced as a free event. In a stadium of, say, 35 thousand-capacity, even if you charge Rs 5,000 per ticket, they will buy and those who don’t make it, go back home. You can then control the turn-out once tickets are sold out. But when you make it free entry, what are the arrangements you have made in a stadium of limited capacity?” he asks.

Chandan continues, “You may let thirty-five thousand people into the venue. What will you do about the lakhs still waiting outside? As a witness to what unfolded, my question is simple – what was the management planning to do for the extra crowd? At some point, I realized that there was no point hanging around and that if I get stuck in this crowd, it would be difficult to even breathe, so I began retreating.”

Chandan says that he was witness to a couple of bodies being carried away, while several injured people were also walking around. “There wasn’t even a facility to provide anyone with a glass of water,” he says and adds, “Why weren’t there barricades outside the venue to control the movement of people? For instance, in a temple like Tirupati, where lakhs of devotees come on a daily basis, they have implemented a queue system with adequate barricades for about half or three quarters of a kilometre. A similar system should have been in place here too.”

Chandan adds that the organizers may have misjudged the magnitude of fans that would turn up for the victory parade. But he wonders why the event was carried out with such urgency and without adequate time to plan and execute it. “An official enquiry has been announced to find out who’s at fault, but the way I see it, such was the crowd that even ambulances could not get anywhere close to where the tragedy was unfolding,” says the rapper.