Probe into T20 crowd fiasco begins

Odisha’s Home Secretary Asit Tripathy on Thursday began investigation into the water bottle throwing incident at Barabati Stadium during the T20 match between India and South Africa on Monday even as Cuttack Police registered a case in this connection.

“I have started investigation into how the indiscipline took place in the stadium. I will suggest the government about how to avoid repeat of such incidents at Barabati Stadium,” Tripathy told reporters.

Sports secretary Saswat Mishra said action will be taken on the basis of the report of the Home Secretary.

“We will cooperate with the home secretary if he requires anything during the investigation,” Mishra said. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on October 6 had ordered the home secretary to probe the matter and submit a report within a month.

Patnaik asked Tripathy to investigate the incident as police and Odisha Cricket Association blamed each other. While the police claimed that they had opposed OCA’s action of allowing water bottles into the stadium, the state cricket body said the incident could have been avoided had the police been alert.

Meanwhile, police took suo motu cognisance and registered a case at Cantonment police station in the wake of nationwide uproar over crowd violence, which disrupted the match for several minutes on Monday. DCP (Cuttack) Sanjeev Arora said efforts are on to identify the persons, who threw water bottles.