On Saturday, Allu Arjun had held a press conference to issue clarification on the Sandhya theatre stampede incident, clearing the air on several things including how he did not learn about the woman’s demise till a day later. On Sunday, Hyderabad police reverted to Allu Arjun’s statements, refuting many of his claims.
Taking to their official X page, Hyderabad city police released a video detailing the events on December 4 when the stampede occurred, which contains several videos from the premises, including CCTV footage, mobile phone videos of the fans present, as well as coverage from news channels. They also shared a detailed timeline of the events on that evening.
According to the videos and the timeline shared by the Hyderabad police, Allu Arjun can be seen arriving at the theatre around 9.30, and his arrival led to humungous crowd following his car which eventually led to the commotion. A few minutes later, while Arjun was being escorted into the theatre by the management, the crowd grew so big that the grill gate leading to the theatre’s lower balcony broke, leading to the crowd spilling into that area. It was around this time that Revathy and her son Sritej fell and collapsed due to suffocation.
While Arjun had claimed on Saturday that he was not informed about the commotion or Revathy's demise, the police had a different story to tell. ACP Ramesh Kumar stated that he tried contacting Arjun first around 10.45 am, only to be stopped by his manager. However, after he informed the manager about Revathy's death and her son being critically injured, Allu Arjun agreed to leave the premises, but only after watching the film. “We told him ‘our officers have cleared the route for you, please leave.’ But he said he would leave only after watching the film,” the ACP said.
Around 11.40 pm, after the DCP informed Allu Arjun’s manager that the actor must leave, Arjun finally sought a few minutes and left the theatre accompanied by the ACP and DCP, as visible in one of the videos shared by the Hyderabad police in the said video shared on their X page.
It is to be noted that Allu Arjun had claimed that he had left the premises after a short while. However, many videos have surfaced on the internet where it is evident that the actor was watching the film at Sandhya theatre for well over 1.5 hours. Additionally, as opposed to Allu Arjun’s statement where he implied that had sufficient permissions to visit the theatre, Chikkadpally SHO Raju Naik claimed that he had officially denied the permission to Sandhya theatre management for Allu Arjun’s appearance, adding, “We were not in contact with Allu Arjun’s team, the theatre management should’ve informed them.”