Killer stampede: Anticipation, top weapon to keep death away
Twenty-six men were killed in Baisaran Meadows near Pahalgam in Jammu & Kashmir on April 22, 2025. They were killed by terrorists, most of them on being asked which community they belonged to, and selectively targeted on being given an answer that weighed in favour of pulling the trigger. Terror killed these men.
Forty-three days later, on June 4, 2025, eleven young lives – those of four women, five men and two minors, a girl aged 14 and a boy aged 17 – were snuffed out when massive crowds, estimated to be about 2.5 lakh to 3 lakh, converged on Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, trying to gain entry into the premises to be a part of the celebrations planned by Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), which won the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 title for the first time in its 18th edition. Stampede killed them.
It may not be fair to compare the two, but what is common in these two horrific incidents is 'Death'. And both these incidents have evoked intense shock and anger – the first, leading to targeting terror bases in Pakistan as part of 'Operation Sindoor', ahead of a 'mini-war' with the neighbouring country – understood to be a major terror-sponsor – lasting three days; and the second, in which action is still unfolding with leaders in the state government, the opposition, the police, RCB, Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) and DNA Entertainment Ltd, the event organisers, locked in a blame-game with no clue yet where the case is heading until an impartial, thorough probe does justice.
Blame is another common factor when such deaths occur; when life is cut short in its prime; when we desperately start looking out for those responsible for the deaths; when we hunt high and low for what caused the deaths; and when it gets us to hurriedly fix the blame on someone or the other in an attempt to come out clean.
But all these are post-catastrophe scenarios, a kind of reactive exercise that, any which way you see it, will not get the dead back among their loved ones.
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