LAHORE: Mismanagement by the organisers of a music concert at the Kinnaird College for Women University (KCWU) on Friday night resulted in a mayhem at the varsity’s amphitheatre -- the venue for the event -- allegedly resulting in minor injuries to some of the participants and some others passing out.

The music concert was a part of the closing ceremony of the Kinnaird Business Week 22 that concluded on March 11. Singers, including Asim Azhar, Hasan Raheem, Risham Faiz Bhutta, Ali Arif and Sami Khan, were lined up for the concert organised by private companies -- The Top Ventures and Anokhay -- in collaboration with the KCWU Department of Business Administration.

A participant in the concert told Dawn that the amphitheatre had maximum capacity to accommodate 2,000-2,500 people, but the organisers sold around 3,500 tickets for the event. She said the people who bought tickets wanted to attend the concert and gathered outside the amphitheatre. They tried to force their entry into the venue after the management refused to entertain them, she said.

She said disappointed by the organisers, the ticket holders started protesting and many of them also tried to scale the walls to enter the venue, resulting in a stampede. Several girls fainted in the stampede and a number of them also suffered injuries, she claimed.

She said because of the stampede, the administration had to wrap up the concert after three performances and the main singer, Asim Azhar, was asked not to perform. Asim had to leave the concert even without appearing on the stage, she added. She said the university’s security staff was called to conclude the concert and police were called to control the situation.

The KCWU administration on Saturday announced lodging a case against the concert organisers for their poor management of the event.Some of the varsity students raised their voice on social media about the poor management of the concert which was stopped in the middle following a stampede occurring at the varsity’s amphitheatre.

The varsity administration said the concert was cancelled in the middle due to the stampede. A number of participants having tickets could not attend the concert because the amphitheatre was full to its capacity, they said.

The administration claimed to have refunded Rs200,000 to the guests who could not attend the concert despite buying tickets, adding that anyone having a ticket could approach them for refund.

An administration official admitted that some of the participants fainted during the stampede and a girl also suffered injury.

Meanwhile, singer Asim Azhar took to Instagram to apologise to all those who were “disappointed” because he couldn’t perform and had come to the venue specifically for his performance.

“I was backstage the entire time with my team ready - but due to the issues of management and crowd control, they told us we could not perform. There were a lot of people in the crowd getting injured and they had to stop it,” he wrote.

One of the organisers, Top Ventures Events, also posted an apology and explanation for what happened at the concert. “To begin with, we want to apologise to the attendees who bought tickets to this event. In our defense, we stopped over 400 attendees with fake passes of the event and when the gates crashed due to excessive push from the crowd, hundreds of attendees entered the venue without tickets,” wrote the organisers.

They also admitted that the stampede caused injuries and distress to those who “had legitimate tickets” of the event. They also alleged that tickets were also sold at higher price at the venue by a “third party”.

There were also allegations of harassment of female participants by some males on Twitter. The varsity, however, denied the allegations, saying no male guest was invited to the event.

The Race Course police said they did not receive any application for registration of a case regarding the KCWU incident so far.

SHO Raza Abbas said they received a call on 15 helpline about the stampede in the concert and reached the university to handle the situation.

“We did not receive any complaint form administration to lodge the case,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2022