MUMBAI: As the King of Latin-pop Enrique Iglesias was rocking Pune with his melodies at the concert, the organizers were busy tackling the brawl that took place on Wednesday at 8.30 pm at the Platinum entry gate of the venue.
It was allegedly claimed that some people who were at the concert were roughly handled by the police authorities. The organizers and the cops both have differing stories explaining the cause of the scuffle.
The event organizers stated that on Wednesday night, a senior policeman who had been granted complimentary passes tried to gatecrash with more guests. But when he was stopped, he allegedly hit them along with other few people working at the event with a stick.
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Confirming the claim with Radioandmusic.com, Only Much Louder (OML) CEO Vijay Nair said, “The ACP-rank officer tried to get few of his people inside the concert venue without valid passes. The ACP had already been given a substantial number of complimentary passes of platinum arena much before the event for his guests, but he came up with another group of his guests and tried to slot them into the platinum section without the required passes. And as we have strict rules, I tried to intervene but I was slapped and my colleagues were injured quite badly, few have also suffered wounds due to the scuffle. DCP Manoj Patil latter came with me to calm the officer and the whole situation.”
Differing with the organizers statement and claiming that they were only ensuring proper frisking at the entrance, the police authorities has alleged that the event organizers had hired bouncers at the entry gate for the checks but they were not conducting proper checks which saw a huge rush of guests. The cops tried to intervene which resulted in an argument with the bouncers who latter heckled assistant commissioner of police (ACP) VT Pawar.
The authorities also claimed that due to mismanagement at the entry gate, guests grew impatient and started force entering the venue, which ultimately led them to use force and cane a few people.
Commenting on the issue, ACP V T Pawar, the police officer who was accused of highhandedness by the organizers told to a daily, “There were some frisking issues at the ‘platinum’ entrance as we found that the security personnel of Only Much Louder were not checking the baggage of the audience properly and when I intervened and reprimanded them, they started arguing with us and later started manhandling us. That prompted us to resort to a mild lathi-charge on the people who were trying to create nuisance and getting into a fight with the police officials.”
Earlier, there was no police complaint filed by the police or the organizers but now the organizers have professed to release security camera footage to prove that the police authorities are attempting to cover up what really happened. Organizers have also filed a complaint against the cop at the Hadapsar police station and will meet Pune’s Police Commissioner tomorrow.
