KARACHI: A ruckus on the final day of the annual Karachi Eat festival marred the event for many, with claims of gatecrashing and harassment circulating on social media.

According to Dawn.com, reports on social media suggested that single men “forcefully entered” the event held at the Beach View Park in Clifton and that people had to leave through spaces between walls and even scale them.

Social media was filled with people sharing their experiences at the festival. People described “a ‘family only’ event turned into an ‘all men’ event” and some said they were harassed at the venue and separated from their friends due to the crowd.

A statement issued by the festival organisers state: “Despite our most stringent efforts, the closing day of our 10th Eat Festival saw unruly crowd behaviour and some very unfortunate and sad incidents occurred.

“This vengeful disregard for rules and regulations gave rise to events that caused much discomfort to innocent people as gatecrashers ran amuck. We are collecting the data and conducting a deeper investigation into the matter of surveillance, breach of boundary walls and the need to up the restrictions of what is brought into the arena.”

Singer Kaifi Khalil, who stopped his performance at the event midway and left the stage, took to Instagram and Twitter on Monday morning with an official statement denying reports that he was injured but slamming the gatecrashers.

SSP-South Syed Asad Raza told Dawn.com that no case had been registered about any untoward incidents at the event.

He said that a huge crowd had gathered and some of them who did not have passes tried to enter but the management and the police closed the doors for a while. However, some people entered it by scaling low walls and contingents of police rushed to the spot to remove them from the premises.

He said that no one was arrested nor had a case or complaint been registered by the management of the food festival.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2023