CHENNAI: The Indian Premier League (IPL) match between Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals at Dharamsala was called off midway as a result of the rising tension between India and Pakistan following Operation Sindoor which was launched after last month's terror attacks in Pahalgam.
With the neighbouring country reportedly launching a series of projectiles on Thursday evening, the local administration began an evacuation process shortly after 9.00 PM. With the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium also witnessing a situation with floodlights, the organisers had no choice but to arrive at the conclusion.
From a broader perspective, nobody really knows if the 18th edition of the league will continue on Friday as the situation is very fluid, dynamic and is changing on a hourly basis. "It will depend on how the situation develops," BCCI vice-president, Rajiv Shukla, told this daily. "Today there were security concerns in Jammu and Pathankot, which were close to Dharamsala, that is why we called off the match. Tomorrow we don't know what will happen, based on that we will take a decision. We are arranging a special train tomorrow (Friday) for everyone to leave safely," Shukla said.
Arun Dhumal, IPL Governing Council chairman, said that 'we called off this match as a precautionary measure'. "We will see what to do next," Dhumal, who was at the venue, informed this daily. Even if the call for cancellation only came after 9.00 PM, the district administration had prepared for this eventuality hours ago. Around 10.45 PM, the Government's Ministry of Defence confirmed the attempted attack on Pathankot.
"Military stations at Jammu, Pathankot & Udhampur were targeted by Pakistani-origin drones and missiles along the International Border in J&K today," they posted on X. "The threats were swiftly neutralised using kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities in line with established Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). No casualties or material losses were reported."
Around 20k evacuated in half-an-hour
Air raid alerts in the nearby areas had already forced a blackout and then began the toughest job of evacuating crowd safely. "The disaster plan was in place as district administration has prepared it well in advance," Avnish Parmar, HPCA secretary, who played a key role in the evacuation process, told this daily. It took around half-an-hour to empty the capacity crowd but as per Parmar, it all went off smoothly.
"We have five main gates and 13 inner gates. As I said, the district administration was well prepared for any eventuality. The teams and others at the venue were evacuated simultaneously. The district administration had already formed teams to deal with the situation and we played the roles we have been assigned," Parmar added.
Even if the evacuation process commenced shortly before Punjab's innings came to a halt, fans had started leaving the Stadium from just after 9.00 PM. "I got a message about the situation in the surrounding areas so I decided to leave," a fan who regularly attends IPL games in Dharamsala told this daily. Multiple people who were at the ground have since confirmed to this newspaper that the ground's public address system wasn't used so as to avoid panic. Instead, members from the operations team executed the evacuation plan.