Stampede at Vijay rally in Karur kills 41 as investigations opened

A stampede at a political rally in Karur district on September 27 during a campaign event led by actor-turned-politician Vijay killed 41 people and injured dozens, authorities and officials said. The crowd surge occurred as Vijay addressed a gathering that far exceeded the capacity for the venue, according to police and the first information report filed after the incident.

Police reports and witness accounts describe a sequence of factors that turned the event into a fatal crush. Organisers had sought permission for a gathering of about 10,000 people, but many thousands more arrived, driven in part by earlier announcements that the leader would appear much earlier in the day. Accounts describe long hours in intense heat, people fainting from exhaustion, narrow access routes and insufficient food and drinking water. Several attendees had climbed on metal sheds and trees to get a view; when those structures failed, the fall of people onto the crowd below is said to have triggered panic and trampling. Ambulances struggled to reach the injured through the dense crowd.

Karur police have named three senior functionaries of Vijay’s party, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam, in an FIR that...