Police served notice to the Pacific Mall manager for inviting huge crowd to the mall where singer Hard Kaur performed on Saturday evening which saw some members of the audience hooting and eve teasing within the mall campus and traffic congestion on Rajpur Road as visitors parked their vehicles on the roadside.
Police inactiveness caused traffic congestion outside this mall leading to public inconvenience but the police are trying to shift the entire blame on the mall administration. The mall administration is guilty too but commercial and cultural events causing public inconvenience in Dehradun is a common feature with the authorities seldom acting against those responsible.
Police claim that the mall officials had submitted affidavit taking responsibility of security arrangements and traffic management outside the mall on Rajpur Road during the event. A police officer said that police is responsible for VIP's security not for artistes who come to perform in the city and the audience.
As per affidavit, the mall manager was supposed to take security measures within the campus apart from managing traffic outside the mall. The programme started at around 7.30 pm and continued till about 8.50 pm. The public started visiting the mall from 6 pm as the performance was scheduled from 6 pm. Some policemen were witnessed at the mall. With the arrival of hundreds of visitors in the mall, road users experienced traffic congestion after 6.30 pm. Traffic was crawling for hours on the Doon-Mussoorie road, one of the busiest roads of the State
capital and police had not made any arrangements for managing traffic here. Despite knowing well-known singer Hard Kaur was to perform in the city on Saturday evening, police had not taken any steps for managing traffic near the venue. Police gave permission for this show without taking steps for ensuring traffic and crowd management.
Mussoorie CO Jaya Baloni said that the mall official had taken permission for the performance stating that they would make their own security arrangements and that they had enough parking space to accommodate limited visitors. According to her, there were no security arrangements made by the mall with no private security guards resolving the traffic congestion outside the mall.
Notice has been served to the mall manager and action will be taken as per the law, she added.