Despite the “best” efforts by the Government of Tamil Nadu and its ‘friendly’ media houses to put the blame on the Indian Air Force for Sunday’s stampede at Chennai’s Marina Beach which resulted in the death of five persons, intelligence officials blamed the state administration for the mishap and hospitalisation of hundreds of people due to suffocation and poor medical facilities. 

The Air Show held in connection with the 92nd anniversary of the IAF had drawn a crowd of more than 1. 2 million to Marina Beach and surrounding areas to watch the adventurous pilots of the IAF in action with their state-of-the-art flying machines.

The IAF in its communique issued days before the event had said that nearly 1.5 million people are expected to converge in Marina Beach, the longest sea shore in South Asia, to watch the action.

While the air show featuring the pilots displaying breathtaking feats was about to conclude, there was chaos as people were moving towards the exit gates in large numbers and many fell down and died due to suffocation.

“Administrative arrangements and crowds were not managed properly and the police force was inadequate.

People were stuck in heavy traffic with no drinking water available, and many were hospitalized due to heatstroke,” said former Chief Minister and AIADMK leader Edappadi Palaniswamy.

A senior intelligence officer said that the administration, especially the Police failed in taking effective crowd management measures which resulted in this mishap. It seems someone in the hierarchy failed in his duty.

I give full credit to the IAF for the steps it had taken to organize such a mammoth show,” said the officer.

He also pointed out that Chennai had hosted such an event in 2003 when Jayalalithaa was the chief minister.

“Crowd management at that time was of high quality,” said the officer who did not want his name to be quoted.

Tamil Nadu’s Minister for Health, M Subramanian issued a statement on Monday claiming that the government has done a good job.

“We had extended all help to the IAF for Sunday’s Air Show.

Several rounds of meetings were held with the IAF authorities and we had met all their demands to manage the crowd.

Two health teams, with adequate number of doctors and nurses, had been deployed by the state government at the venue.

We had provided all the facilities and arrangements beyond what they had requested,” said Subramanian.

Kanimozhi MP, who is the daughter of M Karunanidhi, who is engaged in a fight with chief minister M K Stalin for control of the party, blamed the huge crowd for the disaster.

“We should avoid unmanageable crowds,” said Kanimozhi indirectly hinting that people should have stayed at their homes.