The Karnataka government told the High Court on Thursday, June 5, that over 1,000 police personnel, including the City Police Commissioner, DCPs, and ACPs, were deployed at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on the day of the stampede which resulted in 11 deaths.
This comes a day after Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar claimed that 5,000 police personnel were present to manage the crowd.
The government said water tankers, ambulances, and command and control vehicles were also present, and this was “far more” than what had been done for previous matches.
Despite this, the state said the situation spiralled due to the arrival of over 2.5 lakh people, many of whom believed there would be free entry to the stadium. The stadium has a capacity of 35,000, and usually, only 30,000 tickets are sold.
Appearing before a bench of Acting Chief Justice V Kameshwara Rao and Justice CM Joshi, Advocate General Shashikiran Shetty said, “We are not taking an adversarial approach. Whatever direction the court gives, we are ready to act.”
