CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Police have vigorously defended their deployment strategy following a devastating stampede at a rally organized by actor-politician Vijay, the chief of the Thamizhaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), in Karur, which resulted in 40 deaths and nearly 100 injuries.
Amid swirling allegations of inadequate crowd control, ADGP (Law & Order) Davidson Devasirvatham rejected the criticism, asserting that the deployment was proportionally managed based on a conservative estimate of the expected turnout.
”The Karur event was categorized as high-risk,” Devasirvatham stated. “We deployed 500 personnel in the ratio of one cop for every 50 people, anticipating 25,000 people—2.5 times more than what the organizers themselves had expected.” The actual turnout reportedly reached nearly 27,000.
The ADGP pointed to previous successful deployments at Vijay’s rallies across the state, citing figures like 650 personnel in Trichy and 480 in Perambalur, as evidence of the force’s consistent approach to high-profile political events. He also contrasted the deployment with that of an AIADMK rally at the same Karur venue, which required only 137 police due to an “orderly crowd.”
Despite the defence of the numbers, Devasirvatham conceded that the situation escalated into chaos. He admitted that during the ensuing stampede, “we couldn’t even move the injured through the crowd. Even Vijay himself could not be taken out.”
The chaos, he explained, was rooted in delays and crowd restlessness. Vijay’s late arrival—following a four-hour delay in his previous campaign—led to a massive surge when his vehicle stopped prematurely, resulting in the crowd becoming restive and surging forward. Compounding the situation, many supporters had been waiting for hours without food and water.
The TVK has, in turn, countered the police narrative, alleging that the root cause of the tragedy was the police’s failure to regulate traffic and ensure smooth crowd dispersal. The party has since announced plans to petition the Madras High Court for an independent probe, alleging a “criminal conspiracy” orchestrated by the ruling DMK, a charge strongly denied by the Dravidian party.
