HYDERABAD: Cricket is life, say the sport’s ardent lovers. It was their love for the game that propelled a crowd of nearly 20,000 to queue up at Gymkhana cricket ground hoping to buy tickets for the India-Australia T-20 match. The odds were already set against these cricket enthusiasts despite the fact that reached the ground at 4 am. This was because only 3,000 tickets were up for sale. What unfolded at around noon turned into the biggest nightmare of their lives. The stampede that left many injured and shell-shocked was one that was building, said people who gathered there.
“I have been standing in the queue since 4 o’clock in the morning, “ said a 21-year-old BTech student B Shekhar Kumar who came all the way from Karimnagar to purchase three tickets for the match scheduled for September 25. Though he waited till 3.30 pm, the youth was sent back with empty hands as all the offline tickets were sold out.
Many like Shekhar Kumar were hoping to get tickets when they gained entry to the cricket ground. However, all they returned with was a samosa and a banana provided by the Police Department deployed there to control the crowd. Many others were waiting outside the stadium hoping to get tickets even after the stampede.
“I got drenched in the rain waiting for the tickets. There was no place for us to sit or stand properly. We have not eaten anything since 7 am,” a 30-year-old MNC employee Ravali Chowdary said angrily when a lady constable was asking her and other fans to vacate the place.
“Men who were behind us in the queue pushed us and went inside the ground. There are hardly any women who managed to go inside,” she added.After the stampede, police randomly allowed a large crowd of people to come inside the ground. The security at the gate was then strengthened. The crowd inside the ground was manageable. However, people who had been standing in the queue since morning and lost all hope of getting tickets vented their frustration at the police.
A total of 34,000 seats are available in the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium. Online ticket sales started on September 15. However, the system was jammed within 10 minutes owing to too many visitors. The Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) then decided to sell the tickets offline. Although there was no clarity on it till late Wednesday night.
Thirty-four-year-old Sunita Kapuri who runs a kirana shop with her husband in Shahpur here said that she went to stay with her sister-in-law when she didn’t get the tickets on Wednesday.“This was complete mismanagement by the HCA. The barricading should have been proper. Our people were constantly telling them. Most importantly, more counters and fast disposal of tickets should have been there,” said the Additional Commissioner of Police DS Chauhan.“Public was already impatient and the rain precipitated the situation,” he added.
Police were asking those who were lucky enough to grab tickets to not show it to others. The last 40-50 people got only one ticket each after waiting for hours.The police then announced that only those who booked tickets online would get a hard copy of it and online tickets will be sold from 7 pm onwards. A lot of people again reportedly faced problems booking them online.
Begumpet police register three cases
Begumpet police on Thursday evening registered three cases against HCA and its chief Md Azharuddin under IPC Sections 337, 420 and City Police Act. They registered cases based on complaints filed by two victims Aditi and Syeda Aliya as well as Begumpet SI Pramod Reddy. In their complaints, Aditi and Aliya stated that HCA cheated the fans by not announcing the number of tickets put up for sale while the SI said that many were injured following the stampede
Timeline of fracas at Gymkhana
4.00 am: Thousands start queuing up at ticket counters
7.00 am: The queue becomes longer with more fans gathering at the ground
9.45 am: Confusion and chaos as road gets blocked
10.00 am: Ticket sale starts
11.30 am: Police start sending in two people at a time
11.45 am: As rain starts, people barge into the ground
12.00 noon: With more and more people jostling with each other, stampede ensues
12.30 pm: Police intervene to disperse the crowd, shift injured persons to hospital