Time to take the party somewhere else?

Experts and police officers say crowd control on the narrow Brigade Road and M.G. Road is a policing nightmare

January 04, 2017 12:32 am | Updated 05:52 pm IST

The New Year’s Eve celebrations in the city have made headlines for the wrong reasons, with women partying on M.G. Road and Brigade Road alleging that they were molested by drunk men.

Such incidents play out every year. In 2015, women in Cologne, Germany, were groped and assaulted by revellers. This year, the Cologne police erected concrete barricades at the the main square to segregate the crowd. This method of crowd control was also adopted at the Gateway of India in Mumbai, after an attack on a woman several years ago. More often than not, there are separate lines for single men there.

Senior city police officers said that while they had considered the idea of erecting barricades to control the crowd during the New Year’s Eve celebrations, Brigade Road, M.G. Road and Church Street are too narrow to segregate couples and women from single males.

The city police estimate that this year, more than 50,000 people congregated at Brigade Road and M.G. Road to ring in the new year. “The square in front of Cologne Cathedral and the Gateway of India are wide arenas, providing ample scope for crowd control strategies. In Bengaluru, it’s a policing nightmare to control half a lakh of people on the narrow Brigade Road with multiple side lanes opening into it,” retired police officer B.B. Ashok Kumar said.

Law and order experts and scientists studying crowd control believe that there is a need to shift the new year revelry from Brigade Road to other venues and open spaces.

Ashish Verma, Transportation Engineering Laboratory, Indian Institute of Sciences, who was part of a study on crowd control strategies at Kumbh Mela in April-May 2015, said a cursory examination reveals that narrow roads are not suitable for large crowds.

“Unless you have a robust crowd control strategy, such incidents cannot be avoided, especially when people are inebriated. There are several crowd control strategies and models that can be implemented to ensure than men and women are not attacked. But for any of them to be implemented, the prerequisite is space,” he said.

Dr. Verma suggested that the party scene be shifted to an open ground like the Manekshaw Parade Grounds, where the police would be able to handle the crowd better.

 

Mr. Ashok Kumar, who was a part of New Year’s Eve bundobust at Brigade Road for 20 years, concurred. “Unlike at Harbour Bridge in Australia or Times Square in the United States, there are no fireworks or any such events organised on Brigade Road. I often wonder why the city congregates there. It is high time the government and the city corporation organise an event and steer the crowds away from Brigade Road,” he said.

Lack of public spaces is the larger malaise

Even as experts argue for open spaces where crowds can gather safely, the city is slowly losing its playgrounds and parks as it marches towards greater urbanisation.

Architect Naresh Narasimhan, who is part of Citizens for Bengaluru, said the Brigade Road incident clearly reflected on the city’s lack of public spaces. “The fact that nearly half a lakh people congregated at Brigade Road shows that open spaces are in short supply in the city,” he said, adding that the New Year’s Eve fiasco was a symptom of a larger urban planning malaise.

V. Ravichandar, member of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Restructuring Committee, argued that Bengaluru as a city lacks a truly egalitarian public space. “Mumbai has the Gateway of India, Chennai has Marina Beach, Hyderabad has Hussain Sagar. But Lalbagh and Cubbon Park have somehow not grown as public spaces in Bengaluru. The city administration needs to focus on developing a cluster of public spaces in the city, which will encourage a vibrant community life,” he said.

However, the Urban Development Department is now in the process of amending the Bangalore Development Authority Act, 1976, to reduce the mandatory amount of open spaces in residential layouts from 25 per cent to 15 per cent.

What Bengalureans say

“I have been part of the bundobust for over 20 New Year’s Eve parties at Brigade Road. The area is not suitable for such large crowds, which have only been growing in size with Metro connectivity. It’s a policing nightmare now. The city corporation or the Tourism Department should organise a New Year’s Eve party, probably in an open space like Kanteerava Stadium, where policing and crowd control can be done effectively,” says Mr. Ashok Kumar.

“It is high time the city administration develops a string of public spaces across the city to aid the community life. That is the only way we can distribute the crowds at various venues and prevent a repeat of the Brigade Road fiasco,” says Mr. Narasimhan

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