Bengaluru, June 5: Expressing deep grief over loss of life in the stampede, Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar today said that he was finding it difficult to come to terms with the death of young kids.
“Can’t come to terms with the tragic death of our young kids in yesterday’s stampede. Those kids had a bright future ahead of them. This incident has tarnished the reputation of Bengaluru and Karnataka. We have taken this incident seriously and we will rectify the shortcomings. This is a lesson for us,” he said while speaking to reporters at his Sadashivanagar residence.
Replying to a question on the stampede near Chinnaswamy stadium, he said, “None of us expected that an incident like this would happen in Karnataka. I treat this incident as a personal tragedy. There is a lot of pain among the people of the state about this unfortunate tragedy. This is a time for mourning and not for scoring some political brownie points. The blame for this incident can’t be put on one or two individuals.”
“There was euphoria among the fans of RCB as their favourite team had won the IPL after 18 long years. The victory celebration saw sudden surge of crowds leading to the tragedy. The parents of the victims appealed to us to hand over the bodies without a post mortem, but unfortunately the procedure doesn’t allow that. It can lead to legal issues in the future if the cause of death is not established,” he explained.
Mastermind of ‘politics over dead bodies’
Asked about criticism of the BJP, he said, “I am answerable to the people of the state and not to BJP. Their statements are incoherent and wreak of political opportunism. They are masterminds of opportunistic politics.”
“Kumaraswamy and BJP have made politics over dead bodies as their profession. We can list out all the tragedies during their term, but I don’t want to stoop to their level. I have seen kids aged 14-15 dead in the stampede, no family can digest such a tragedy. The police commissioner told the organisers to cut down the programme to 10 minutes. We also spoke to the RCB management to cut the programme short,” he lamented.
“Even the KSCA President and Secretary could not go to the stadium and I had to take them in my car. My media friends informed about the stampede. The police commissioner too spoke to me,” he added.
Will talk about incidents during BJP and JDS regime in the Session
“It doesn’t matter what politicians say about this tragedy, they have their political calculations behind their statements. C T Ravi, Kumaraswamy, Ashok are all doing politics over this. This is not the time to rebut them. Will talk about incidents during their regime when the session convenes. I am not going to talk about what happened during Rajkumar’s death. BJP and JDS are experts in the brand of ‘politics over dead bodies. That is their sole agenda,” he retorted.
Asked about Kumaraswamy’s accusation that the DCM was responsible for the deaths, “I will respond to Kumaraswamy later. I was in a court in Kanakapura for a hearing. I rushed to Bengaluru the moment the police rejected permission for the parade. We even stopped metro services to stop swelling crowds.”
