Police have booked the management of Mount Carmel College for “not taking permission” for an August 15 event that turned chaotic and caused a traffic jam in some parts of the CBD.
Police invoked IPC sections related to wrongful restraint, causing danger, obstruction or injury in any public way, public nuisance and unlawful assembly against the authorities of the well-known institution situated on Palace Road in Vasanthnagar.
The college had organised the event from 9 am to 3 pm to mark its platinum jubilee as well as the 75th year of independence. It was meant to be “a celebration of fun, culture and solidarity”. Attendance was compulsory for the nearly 8,000 undergraduate and about 3,000 pre-university students. Students’ parents and relatives, as well as members of the public, could also attend by buying entry tickets.
The response was so huge that the college authorities weren’t prepared to handle it. The campus was soon filled to capacity even as hundreds of participants lined up at the entry gates. The college authorities decided to restrict entry.
While this didn’t ease things inside the campus, the crowd waiting outside got impatient. Traffic also piled up. The college decided to wind up the programme midway, around 12.30 pm. But this only triggered chaos. While participants began leaving, many youths who didn’t have tickets sneaked in and were found smoking inside the campus. Police stepped in and pulled up the college authorities.
The college management told the police they didn’t anticipate that so many people would turn up.
“It was a huge crowd. The college didn’t take our permission before hosting such a big event. A stampede might have happened. The college management says no untoward incident happened. Should it have happened? We have taken up an FIR,” the assistant commissioner of police (Seshadripuram subdivision) told DH.
The officer, however, said there won’t be any coercive action against the college management. “We will question them but won’t harass anyone. We don’t want to harass an institution. We just want to make sure such things do not happen again,” he added.
The FIR states that the college had issued 10,000 tickets, each priced at Rs 100, and encouraged students to sell 20 tickets each.
A senior faculty member said the college management submitted a letter to the jurisdictional High Grounds traffic police station on August 14, stating that the institution would hold Independence Day and platinum jubilee celebrations on August 15 and a sizable number of people were expected to gather.
“But we didn’t expect such a large crowd. We were taken aback. However, apart from the large crowd outside the gate that blocked the movement of traffic, no other untoward incident was reported. There were no instances of harassment as is being circulated on social media,” the faculty member said.
Dr Pavithra Raj, Chief Welfare Officer at the college, said there was a huge floating crowd but asserted that the event passed off incident-free. “Save for the overcrowding, we had a wonderful programme. Our girls showcased their skills. No untoward incident was reported to us,” she said, adding they held discussions with the police on Thursday.