Ahmedabad: The passionate fans will not be able to celebrate Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s title defence with the team after the franchise decided against holding a victory parade in the city in order to avoid the crowd frenzy, which led to last year’s deadly stampede.
The Royal Challengers lifted their second consecutive IPL title, beating Gujarat Titans by five wickets here on Sunday.
The RCB took such a decision also keeping in mind the swearing-in ceremony of newly-appointed Karnataka Chief Minister DK Shivakumar.
The function is scheduled to be held at Lok Bhavan at 4.10 pm and the Governor’s residence is in close proximity to Chinnaswamy Stadium. The political function is expected to attract a massive crowd from across the state.
The ceremony, which is to be attended by several dignitaries, will also require considerable deployment of police personnel, and it will be tough for the state police department to spare men for another high-voltage function.
In that context, the RCB management felt that it was better to adhere to the police notification, prohibiting public celebrations on city streets.
On June 4, 2025, 11 fans were killed near Chinnaswamy Stadium as RCB hastily arranged a victory parade following their maiden title win, and clearly no one wanted a repeat of that this year.
That tragic chain of events had invoked huge public outrage and the intervention of state government and judicial powers, including the High Court.
“It is highly unlikely that there will be any activities in Bengaluru. There are certain guidelines in place, and we need to stick to them,” a RCB source indicated to PTI.
Bengaluru city police on Friday had issued an advisory urging the public to avoid bursting crackers, holding road celebrations, creating disturbances or engaging in fights if RCB win the IPL final.
“We have issued an advisory asking fans not to celebrate publicly on the streets and especially not to disturb peace and security.
“We will not allow any public celebrations. If anyone wants to celebrate, they can do it indoors,” Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Seemanth Kumar Singh had said.
Besides, RCB top-order batter Devdutt Padikkal will have to join the Indian Test squad on Mullanpur by Wednesday ahead of the one-off Test against Afghanistan, while others like Josh Hazlewood, Tim David (Australia), Jacob Duffy (New Zealand) and Romario Shepherd (West Indies) too have upcoming national team commitments.
PTI
