BENGALURU: Virat Kohli said he was lost for words after celebrations of a dream IPL title turned to tragedy when 11 mainly young cricket fans were crushed to death in Bengaluru.
Hundreds of thousands had packed the streets Wednesday to welcome home their hero Kohli and the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) after they had beaten Punjab Kings a day earlier in a thrilling Indian Premier League final.
But the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling it “absolutely heartrending.”
Karnataka state Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the 11 dead were young people and there were 47 others injured in the crush after a stampede near the city’s M. Chinnaswamy cricket stadium, where the players were parading the trophy for fans.
Kohli, who top scored in the final, said earlier it had been “as much for the fans” after the 36-year-old finally celebrated winning the IPL at his 18th attempt.
Later, Kohli wrote on social media: “At a loss for words.
“Absolutely gutted,” he added, alongside a statement from the RCB team saying they were “deeply anguished” at what had unfolded.
One of the people injured described to AFP how a “huge crowd” had crushed her.
“They stamped on me,” said the woman, who did not give her name, from a wheelchair.
“I was not able to breathe. I fell unconscious.”
Most of the dead were young fans who had gone out just to catch a glimpse of their sporting heroes.
Street food vendor Manoj Kumar mourned the death of his 18-year-old son, killed in the stampede, who he said he had stopped from working on his stall so he could study.
“I wanted him to go to college,” Kumar told the Indian Express newspaper.
“I brought him up with a lot of care. Now, he is gone.”
A grieving mother outside a city mortuary said her 22-year-old engineering student son had also died in the crush.
“He was crazy about RCB,” she was quoted as saying by the Indian Express on Thursday.
“He died in an RCB shirt. They danced when RCB won and now he is gone. Can RCB give him back to us?”
Authorities had already called off RCB’s proposed open-top bus victory parade through the streets after anticipating vast crowds.
But organizers pressed ahead with the welcome ceremony and celebrations inside the stadium.
RCB’s social media account posted a video of cheering crowds lining the streets as the players waved back from their team bus on their way to the stadium.
The team said they cut short the celebrations “immediately upon being made aware of the situation.”
Siddaramaiah said that the stadium had a capacity of “only 35,000 people, but 200,000-300,000 people came.”
