The move by the Pune police to stop the concert of music maestro AR Rehman’s concert at 10 pm in Pune on Sunday on grounds of time limit has sparked a controversy, with the Opposition Shiv Sena (UBT) flagging the issue of a BJP youth leader Mohit Kamboj Bharatiya being in an inebriated condition at a Mumbai bar as late at 3 AM on April 30. The Opposition is questioning the Maharashtra Government’s double standards.
On a day when a video clip of the police personnel walking onto the stage at Raja Bahadur Mill area in Pune where Rehman was performing live and demanding that the show be stopped immediately went viral on social media, the police went on the defensive and issued a clarification.
Deputy Commissioner of Zone-2 of the Pune Police Smartana Patil said: “We stopped AR Rehman from continuing with his song that he was rendering, as he was performing beyond the permissible time of 10 PM. Rehman was singing his last song and he did not realise that it was already past 10 PM. The police present at the venue conveyed to him that the deadline of 10 PM needs to be followed as per the Supreme Court guidelines”.
Cashing in on the manner in which the Pune police enforced the time limit in the case of Rehman, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP and chief spokesperson Sanjay took to twitter and asked Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis – who holds the State Home portfolio –as to why the state government was adopting double standards while dealing with Rehman and Mohit Kamboj, believed a close confidant of Fadnavis himself.