Hyderabad: The world première of the much-anticipated film ‘Pushpa 2’ turned tragic on December 4 when a stampede at the Sandhya Theatre resulted in the death of a 35-year-old woman and injuries to her eight-year-old son. The chaos, attributed to the overwhelming crowd eager to catch a glimpse of the film’s star, Allu Arjun, has now become a heated topic in the Telangana Legislative Assembly.
Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao’s government has defended itself amid criticism by the opposition led by Chief Minister Revanth Reddy for attending the event against police advisories. Reddy has pointed out that the police had refused to give permission to screen the filmsince there would be a likely stress in controlling the crowds, while the actor went ahead and organised the event that claimed the lives of the people.
The administration had informed police on December 2 activates security because crowds were expected on December 4. That is why even after the warnings and the denial of permission Allu Arjun attended the screening, thus initiating that fateful catastrophe,” concluded Reddy.
The matter reached its boiling point when the AIMIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi brought it into the Assembly. On this, Reddy said the same thing as Mukesh and blamed Allu Arjun for whatever happened. In his response, he pointed out a video on Twitter where Arjun waving at the public, making the situation worse.
To the existing controversy, Reddy takes his time to excoriate the industry’s response after the incident. Film personalities visited Allu Arjun’s house immédiately after the arrest but neither they visited the injured boy nor the family of the woman who died”, Reddy questioned about the concern of the heroes of the movie industry.
This sad occurrence has raised the pertinent issues of concerning practises of crowd management particularly on large events. Recent experience has shown inadequate communication between organisers of campaigns, programmes and security departments and proper prevention measures.
The Chief Minister’s comments have urged entertainment fraternity to question their role beyond the screen and do some serious soul searching. ‘It is about time that the film industry becomes a little humane and caring towards the people who stand by them,’ added Reddy.
While the particular case is still being studied, demands for action are growing louder, emphasising on actions to avoid similar events again.