Eleven people were killed and 47 were injured when a stampede broke out at the gates of Bengaluru’s Chinnaswamy Stadium on June 4.

The video shows a grief-stricken BT Lakshman, the father of 21-year-old Bhumik Lakshman who died in the stampede, at his son’s grave at their native village in Hassan district.

Not letting go

Sprawled on his son’s grave, the anguished father cried out that what happened to his son should not happen to anyone. “The land I had bought for him is where his memorial has been built,” he said, clinging to his son’s grave.

He also said that he did not want to leave the grave. “I don’t want to go anywhere, I want to stay here,” cried the father as two men approached him to help him to his feet.

Also read: ‘Blood on their hands’: Ex-top cop Bhaskar Rao blames govt for Bengaluru stampede

A final-year engineering student, Bhumik was among the lakhs who had turned up outside the Chinnaswamy Stadium on June 4 to celebrate and catch a glimpse of the RCB players, who had won the IPL title after an 18-year wait. He was among the 11 people, which included another 21-year-old dental student, who had died in the stampede that followed.

After the tragedy, he had appealed to the government to give him his son’s body without “cutting him up” during a post-mortem.

“I had only one son, and now I have lost him. Please give me his body, don’t conduct a post-mortem and cut his body into pieces. The Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister may visit us (the victims of the tragedy), but they can’t bring him back,” he had said.

BJP shares video

This video of Lakshman at his son’s grave was shared by the BJP Karnataka, which slammed Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar calling them “murderous”.

Also read: Bengaluru stampede LIVE | BJP, JD(S) doing politics over dead bodies: Shivakumar

“Murderous CM @siddaramaiah sir, murderous DCM @DKShivakumar sir, if you had made up your mind, you could have taken a photo with your children and grandchildren in a luxurious hotel with a cup. But your insistence on taking a photo on the steps of the Vidhana Soudha has made 11 families wash their hands in tears every day. Can you give this father his son back?” said the post on X.

Arrest and suspension

However, the Congress, said that BJP is just trying to politicise the issue and pointed out that the Karnataka government is doing all it can to help the victims’ families and ensure that a tragedy like this doesn’t happen again.

The police have arrested four people in connection with the stampede. Meanwhile, the government suspended five police officers, including the Bengaluru Police Commissioner, which caused a lot of uproar and backlash for the Siddaramaiah government. They were suspended for “substantial dereliction of duty”. Former top cop has said that the Congress-led government has “blood on their hands”.

On Friday, the Karnataka government also sacked Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s political secretary K Govindaraj as well as the state intelligence department chief.

Also read: Bengaluru stampede LIVE: Govt hikes compensation for kin of dead to Rs 25 lakh