Atif Aslam asked the misbehaving youths to respect women during a concert in Karachi an hour past midnight on Saturday, reports Dawn.
The concert was organised by IBA as part of their MUNIK (Model United Nations). Things took a wrong turn due to mismanagement as many gatecrashed the concert. The crowd was out of control and many women were harassed and molested.
Things had become so problematic during Atif’s performance, when some female attendees in the front row were being harassed, the singer stopped his concert mid-way, asked a young woman to be ‘rescued’ and then told the harraser to behave and respect women, otherwise he’ll walk out.
“It was horrible management,” Osama, an atendee, shared with images.
“The concert was supposed to start at 7.30/8pm, but nobody was allowed to enter the premises till 9pm. They had the gates shut and it was highly disturbing because they were expecting a huge crowd but there was only one small gate to pass through. Families, VIPs, security, everyone was passing through that gate; automatically people were getting harassed and pushed on their way in, and women were getting squished in the middle.
“It took us 45 minutes to enter, and we were one of the lucky ones to make it in first, others had to wait outside for longer.”
He continued, “They were short staffed, it was evident they had no arrangement for the crowd, there were no bouncers, very less security. There was a VIP enclosure with short barriers where we were sitting, but 10-15 minutes into Asim Azhar’s performance-the first performance of the night-we saw that people from the general entry had pushed away the barriers and were making their way into the VIP lounge.”
Osama added that they were all seated on couches when a huge rush of people crashed into the VIP area; they ran and made their way straight to the front, closest to the stage. “The VIPs couldn’t see anything as they were sitting and all these people were standing. There was total chaos."
“The concert was supposed to end at 2am, but due to the delay and disorganisation it ended at 2.45am. Many women and families had left by then. Atif’s performance started at 1.17am and it was during his show that he stopped and called out one harasser.”
Dua Rashid, one attendee, told Images she was touched by Atif’s act.
“Atif was performing after Abida left-this was around 1.15am-he was in the middle of a song when he suddenly stopped and so did the music; he bent down to talk to one of the boys in the front row, he still had the mic in his hand and we could all hear him.
He asked the boy something along the lines of, ‘Have you never seen a girl before?’ or ‘Do you have women at home?’ and then ordered security to come on stage. On his orders, two security guards immediately came on stage and were ordered by Atif to ‘rescue her [the girl],’ they pulled the girl up on stage and escorted her down the stairs.
“Atif then addressed the boy again warning him not to engage in such mannerism. He then turned to the crowd and spoke about respecting girls and added that he’d end the concert if we didn’t comply to his instructions on respecting women.”
Faisal Kapadia also witnessed the harassment at the concert.
“Yep, right in the front there was someone pushing a girl. He stopped the concert, told people to rescue her, and told the guys to behave or he will leave.”
“In the middle of his concert, somebody was pushing some girls in the front row, He stopped the concert and he told his manager Omer, to go rescue the girl and he told the organisers to remove the guys in the front row who were pushing the girls and he told them ‘insaan kay bachchay bano’, and he even asked them ‘tumhari maa behnein nahi hain’, and if you keep continuing to do this, I’m going to walk off.’ That’s why people are saying they have such respect for him.”
Many people are of the opinion that the harassment at the concert drives home the need for public events to implement family- or women-only policies of admission, the Dawn maintained.
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