Commonwealth Games: Spectators suffer Metro, security chaos

NEW DELHI: While the rousing opening ceremony for Delhi 2010 lifted the city's mood and won praise internationally, there were plenty of spoilers for spectators who had started arriving at the new-look Jawaharlal Nehru stadium five hours in advance. They had to bear with glitches in the newly opened Metro line, got pushed around while standing in 2km-long queues for getting inside the stadium and were sent on wild goose hunts by volunteers who had no idea about the seating arrangements.
Warned against coming to the show in their vehicles, most spectators took the Sarita Vihar-Central Secretariat line -- opened for commuters on Sunday itself to coincide with the opening ceremony. But the Metro line ran into serious operational problems, leaving commuters stranded for up to an hour on the 15km route as some trains stopped on the tracks and others rolled past platforms without halting.
For many, the real ordeal began outside the stadium. The 25,000-strong security could not handle the surging crowds and there were several stampede-like situations. Luckily, there were no reports of serious injury. Said Rita Chawla, a spectator, "As soon as the gates were opened, a strong crowd of nearly 1,000 people pushed us inside. My children suffered injuries. No one was moving inside and it was really a bad experience after we had to walk nearly a kilometre from the Jungpura Metro station."
Thousands of spectators had problems getting to the appropriate gate for entering the stadium. Volunteers, who had no clue about the location of the stadium's 18 gates, sent people in different directions. Security personnel around the stadium and the metro station added to the confusion.
Said Shanti R, a resident of Kalkaji, who had taken the Metro and got off at Jor Bagh station as per the announcements in the train. "After I came out the station, security personnel and volunteers sent me on a completely different direction. I walked past almost all the gates of the stadium before reaching my gate."
The location of the only gate which most volunteers seemed to be certain of was no. 14. Most directions were given via that gate even in cases where it meant a long walk around the venue. What added to the problem was that the security personnel had made gate 14 out of bounds for all except those who had tickets for that gate. So, at the Mathura Road left turn leading to CGO complex, a large number of spectators were seen arguing with policemen to be allowed into gate 14.
"I had to reach gate 6. None of the volunteers from whom I would ask for directions had any clue. After having walked a long distance, I asked a young boy who tried to send me in a completely different direction. Thankfully, I didn't listen to him. Enthusiasm is fine but you need information too for this kind of work," said Deepayan Chatterjee, a Malviya Nagar resident.
Such were the numbers that the cops at the outer ring decided to give frisking a slip and allowed spectators to go straight to the second security check. There, however, none of the card readers for checking accreditation batches were found to be working.
One of the spectators, who had come along with her family, even got on to the card reader machine after one of her family members was pushed at the gate.
A senior police officer, however, denied there were any lapses in the security process. "There are 18 gates and we have posted security personnel who allow entry after proper checking and frisking. No one is allowed without being checked thrice. There is an evacuation plan for every seat," he said.
However, Amit Chauhan, a spectator, had a different story to tell. "It took me nearly three hours to get inside the stadium. The crowd was badly managed and we had a stampede-like situation. The cops should not have opened the gate and should have monitored entry strictly by turn. Several of my relatives got entry inside the stadium after the show had started at 7pm," he said.
"We had to plead with the security guards to let us in. But there were many families who could not get inside till the last moment. They suffered due to the Delhi Metro's mismanagement and shortsightedness. They expected huge rush and still failed to make proper arrangements. Had we known this, we would have taken a bus instead and walked to the stadium," said Sumit Goel, who lives in East of Kailash.