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Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) followers exterior the closed metro station close to the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
| Picture Credit score: Okay. MURALI KUMAR
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Officers stated that 8.7 lakh individuals boarded metro till 9 p.m. on Wednesday.
Choking CBD space
Whereas the Bengaluru visitors police (BTP) had imposed visitors restrictions and suggested commuters to keep away from the CBD areas, the foremost roads across the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium and Vidhana Soudha had been choked. Residency Street, Richmond Street, Nrupatunga Street, Ulsoor Street after Trinity Circle and Raj Bhavan Street had been chock-a-block through the night peak hours.
In the meantime, from the afternoon, these commuting by metro, particularly on the Purple Line, struggled because the trains had been overcrowded.
“I left Kengeri station at about 3.15 p.m., and the group was already big. Then, by the point the prepare reached Vijayanagar, scores of individuals wearing RCB jerseys boarded the prepare. They started chanting ‘RCB’ and ‘Ee sala cup namdu’, and by the point the prepare entered Majestic, there have been extra individuals than the prepare might comprise, and the chanting bought even louder. Exiting on the Cubbon Park station, close to which my office is positioned, was a job. One elevator had even stopped working,” stated Ramesh Kumar, a metro commuter.
As chaos continued to unfold close to the stadium and Vidhana Soudha, Bangalore Metro Rail Company Ltd. (BMRCL) introduced that the trains wouldn’t cease at B.R. Ambedkar Vidhana Soudha and Cubbon Park stations.
“Because of the extraordinarily excessive footfall for the RCB crew felicitation perform at Vidhana Soudha and Chinnaswamy cricket stadium, from 4.30 p.m., metro trains is not going to cease at Cubbon Park and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Vidhana Soudha stations till additional discover. Accordingly, token and QR ticket merchandising providers at these stations have been quickly suspended,” the BMRCL stated in a press assertion.
This resulted in big crowds gathering on the close by stations, together with Sir M. Visvesvaraya Central Faculty, M.G. Street, and Trinity, and the ripple impact stretched until Swami Vivekananda Street station. Many individuals had been additionally seen strolling from close to the stadium for kilometres to achieve different metro station.
To deal with the surge, metro commuters had been allowed to move with out scanning QR code tickets, playing cards, or tokens, resulting in congestion close to barricades. Some commuters described being trapped in metro trains that didn’t cease at stations, with shutters down, creating a daunting expertise.
Even then, till nearly 8 p.m., there have been big queues exterior the metro stations. “I boarded the prepare at M. G. Street, they usually had been letting individuals in batches of fifty. I might see that there have been males even contained in the compartment reserved for ladies. It took me over 1.5 hours to achieve the Baiyyappanahalli metro station after I reached M.G. Street station,” stated Pratap Reddy, an everyday commuter of metro who was going house after work.
Surge pricing
The intensive demand for transport additionally led to surge pricing on most ride-hailing apps, leaving commuters with no alternative however to pay double the same old. “I work on Residency Street and needed to attain Peenya through the peak hour of the night. I discovered that the metro was overcrowded and booked a cab, ended up paying ₹600 for a trip which shouldn’t have value greater than ₹300,” stated Manasa S., a personal complany worker.
(With inputs from Sagnik Maitra and Eman Syed)
Revealed – June 05, 2025 07:21 am IST
