11 fans lost their lives while attending RCB's maiden IPL title win celebrations.
A joyous victory for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the IPL 2025 turned tragic as a stampede outside the Chinnaswamy Stadium resulted in 11 people losing their lives and 33 getting injured.
The unfortunate episode occurred on Wednesday (June 4) when passionate fans were attending the celebration event for the RCB team lifting their maiden IPL trophy.
Two days after the incident, the Bengaluru Police arrested Nikhil Sosale from the RCB management while Sunil Mathew of the event management company DNA was also taken into custody.
Sosale is the head of marketing and revenue for RCB at Diageo India. He was arrested by the cops in Bengaluru when he was reportedly departing for Mumbai.
According to India Today, the police have also held three staff members of DNA Entertainment Networks Pvt. Ltd.
Talking about Sosale, he was in attendance in every RCB IPL game during the 2025 season. On a number of occasions, he was spotted sitting alongside Virat Kohli's wife Anushka Sharma in the stands.
Sosale has been associated with the franchise since its formative years. As per his LinkedIn profile, he leads the design, strategy, and delivery of the business and marketing charter of the leading brand and commercial program in the IPL.
Earlier, it was reported that the Bengaluru Police have filed an FIR naming the RCB franchise as accused number 1 in the stampede case.
According to the FIR accessed by News18, DNA Entertainment has been listed as accused number 2, and a top official from the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) has been named as accused number 3.
The complaint was reportedly lodged by a police inspector from the Cubbon Park Police Station, who has alleged that RCB, KSCA, and DNA ignored the state police’s warnings about crowd management and safety and went ahead with the victory celebrations.
Police claim that the organisers failed to control the crowd or put a proper entry plan in place at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Over 2.5 lakh people had reportedly assembled there for the celebration despite the stadium having the capacity to accommodate around 30,000 to 35,000 people.
RCB were supposed to hold a victory parade from Vidhana Soudha to Chinnaswamy Stadium. Throughout the day, there was no clarity on whether the parade would took place, as initially, the Bengaluru traffic police denied permission, citing that there might be too much chaos.
As soon as the Rajat Patidar-led side reached Vidhana Soudha to meet the Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, a stampede was reported outside the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
RCB’s victory celebrations inside the iconic venue lasted for half an hour as Virat Kohli and Rajat Patidar delivered short speeches, thanking the crowd for their constant support. The entire squad then took a lap around the ground.
(With HT Inputs)