‘Repeated TVK failures ended in Karur stampede’: Lensman recalls ‘pattern of chaos’

As I filmed distressed and wailing people outside the Karur Government Hospital mortuary today (September28), I could not control my tears.

In my 20 years as a cameraperson, I have covered countless rallies and campaigns of various political parties across Tamil Nadu. I have seen fervent crowds, long roadshows, and passionate supporters. There have been days when we had to hang on to the campaign van and cover the crowd.

But I had never felt the sense of unease that gripped me from the very first TVK conference in Villupuram.

Also read: Madras HC to hear plea on Sunday against TVK rallies after Karur stampede

Uneasy feeling

I had a bad feeling about children being brought to all the TVK meetings and rallies, which I had been covering since the first state conference at Vikiravandi in Villupuram in October 2024. I saw them being pushed around alarmingly amid mammoth crowds.

At all these events, it was evident to me that the TVK organisers could not control crowds, and people suffered from dehydration and collapsed. Many children looked tired and dizzy. I saw them through my lens in tight close-ups. And even now, if I close my eyes, I can see those weary eyes right in front of me.

Also read: TVK rally tragedy: Power outage, 'sabotage' or sheer 'irresponsibility'?

Less of TVK supporters, more of Vijay fans

The deaths of those 40 people in Karur — many of them children — have affected me deeply. Not only Karur, at all these TVK meetings, I saw children and women faint under the hot sun. When I spoke to some mothers, they said they had come because Vijay said he wasn’t just a leader, he was their maternal uncle, their brother. What unfolded through my lens was a disaster.

More than “TVK supporters”, I saw “Vijay fans” who were exhausted; many were lying on the ground after waiting for their hero for several hours. They were desperate for water and first aid, which never came.

I saw people come with families, children in their arms, and young women standing for hours just to catch a glimpse of their leader or take a selfie with him. I understood the sentiment of calling it a “TVK family meeting”. And yet, the devotion of these people made the tragedies even harder to bear.

Also read: Karur stampede: TVK cries sabotage, moves Madras HC seeking fair probe

From bad to worse

At the two state-level conferences in Vikiravandi and Madurai, I remember chaos and huge unruly masses, not merely “crowds”. Chastened by my experiences at the earlier events, I carried water bottles at all the rallies, but I had to hand over those bottles to people who were on the verge of collapse. Though pipes were seen at the conference venues, there was no water. My female colleagues told me that though there were “pink rooms”, the washrooms were unusable.

In the first election rally in Trichy, the crowd was so massive that even I fainted, gasping for breath. It took me 20 minutes just to get some water and nearly 30 to get medical help. Vijay, delayed by nearly five hours along the 8-km stretch, remained unaware of the chaos surrounding him.

At the Nagapattinam and Namakkal rallies, I saw the horror intensify. The narrow streets were jammed, with supporters climbing rooftops, hanging precariously from electric poles, breaking walls, and squeezing into every inch of space they could find.

Also read: Karur stampede: Probe takes political twists and turns as death toll hits 40

Pattern of chaos, mismanagement

I remember a pattern in all these events: Barricades were broken, supporters made a mad dash for the stage, and I watched girls and boys struggle in the waves of pushing and shoving. There was no space for media persons in the allotted enclosures. The space was occupied by unruly mobs.

Women swayed precariously, many fainting in the heat, and even reporters were shoved aside. There was no warning, either from the police or the organisers of the so-called “TVK family meeting”. The crowd was in distress throughout the day.

The aftermath of each rally looked the same too: wrecked barricades, scattered belongings, exhausted and injured Vijay fans. As the situation got worse and worse with each rally, it just exploded in Karur. People were crushed in the crowd surge, children got trapped in handcarts, and families pinned against each other.

Also read: Karur stampede: 4 TVK leaders booked in attempt to murder case

Karur was not an ‘accident’

Personally, I endured hunger and thirst, and feared for my own safety. But the experience of witnessing destroyed lives because basic safety measures were ignored has left me traumatised.

The hopeful and eager faces I had seen at previous rallies now lay lifeless before me. I filmed what I could, but the pain, the helplessness, and the fear were beyond any lens. Those scenes — of mothers holding unconscious children, men desperately trying to pull their family members out of the melee, and a ground resembling a battlefield — will haunt me forever.

What happened in Karur was not an accident. It was the tragic consequence of repeated failures ignored across five events.