After Disaster, FIR Finally Registered Against Solis Music Festival Organizers

The right decision? What about the hooligans?

solis-festival

If you thought the unpleasantness of what went down at Solis Music Festival Islamabad 2020 over the weekend was done and dusted, think again. Matters seem to be moving in the right direction as an FIR has been registered.

Once again Deputy Commissioner Islamabad (DCI), Hamza Shafqat jumped in to the rescue. DCI announced in a tweet that an FIR has been registered against the organizers of Solis Music Festival.

“An inquiry is under process with the Islamabad Police. The company is already blacklisted and will not be allowed any future event in Islamabad.”


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After all that trouble, we’re still not pointing our fingers in the right direction. Personal lawsuits for settlement and monetary compensation would make sense, but an FIR against the organizers looks like we’ve found our scapegoat.

More needs to be done if the victims are to get justice. The authorities are supposed to identify, nab and throw the miscreants in jail who crashed the event and harassed the people who were already there.

Solis Organizers Response

According to Express Tribune, the organizers of the Solis Music Festival are actually looking forward to the investigation. They too want to get to the bottom of the matter of the fake tickets.

“The Deputy Commissioner of Islamabad is doing what he needs to do to protect his citizens and we will always stand by and respect that. We have nothing to hide and we know we did everything by the books. In fact, we hope this investigation reveals who exactly is behind the issuing of fake tickets.”

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The problem is following the fake ticket trail will only solve half the problem. What about the mob that is responsible for damage to property at the venue? The mob that is responsible for the harassment and consequent sense of insecurity that followed.

Just because these organizers will no longer be allowed to hold events does not mean we the people will learn to behave.

“We started our first ever show in Islamabad which was a huge success, so yes it definitely hurts us that it has to be this way.”

This attitude of letting the mob walk scot-free just encourages behavior like this. If and when the people that are behind the fake tickets are found they should be used to identify all the attendees at the event.


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With that information, it is necessary to reprimand this ‘mob culture’. According to Freiha Altaf who was there to support her son Turhan James;

“The situation had little to do with the security and more to do with the mob culture that prevails in Pakistan.”

As an event organizer herself, she pointed out how event security in the capital’s red zone can’t subdue a mob.

“Everything was fine until the gatecrashers ruined things for everyone. The VIP lounge is built according to the amount of people it must accommodate, otherwise, it will crash. The venue was also in a red zone, right behind Marriot, which means there was strict security. However, the amount of people that crashed the event was clearly unexpected,”

If Pakistan really plans to open our doors to foreign tourists we ought to learn how to behave in front of foreign artists first. Not only was the Solis Islamabad 2020 event a disaster, it has also proved discouraging for electronic music enthusiasts as well as foreign artists who wished to perform in Pakistan.