The recent chaos and confusion at Nikhil Chinapa and DJ Dash Berlin’s party held during the weekend at Penthouze Lounge in Koregaon Park has left Pune party-goers, club owners and youngsters miffed.
This has not been the first time when the cops played party-poopers. In August, the Pune rural cops busted a late night booze party at a farmhouse at Aapti Gevndi village near Pavananagar and claimed to have recovered Rs24 lakh, foreign made liquor and contraceptives.
Mayur Phalke, an information technology (IT) professional and regular party-goer said, “The Pune party scene has reached a lull. There was a time when it was happening and for good reasons. Today it is a joke. We wind up a party at 11 pm! It is disheartening as all we want to do is enjoy after a hectic week.”
So, are the cops going overboard with moral policing or are party organisers too lax about completing legal formalities? Reacting to the police behaviour with the DJ at the recent party raid at Penthouze Lounge, Ma Faiza, an international DJ based out of Pune said, “I am not surprised at what happened, just continually horrified at the moral policing and political policing of our young people.”
The DJ party raid was carried out by the city police on Saturday after PMC corporator Avinash Bagwe along with National Students Union of India (NSUI) leader Rahul Mhaske approached the Mundhwa police to stop the party organised by disc jockey (DJ) Nikhil Chinapa.
Shailendra Kekade, general manager of city-based Stone Water Grill said the police have to be aware of what is happening, what they are dealing with and what corrective action is to be taken if there is anything wrong.
“Abusing the DJ and confiscating his equipment would not have happened if the police had understood the situation. Such police behaviour is a problem we all in the business face,” he said.
If the DJ was not carrying the right visa, socialite Mickey Zaveri said, the police have the right to take action, however, the onus is on the lounge owner and the event organiser; they should be questioned. He added it is unethical for the police to barge in on a DJ party at a city lounge and arrest the DJ. Probably some political pressure has pushed the police to carry out the raid, he said.
City-based DJ Terminal (Sagar Narayankar) said, “Whatever visa issue the police had with the DJ, they could have resolved it before or after the party. They had no reason to stop the party. The city cops have reacted wrongly without any understanding.”
Agreeing with the DJ is Supriya Sinha, a student who has seen Pune’s party scene go horribly wrong. “Today, the word party puts cops on the alert. It is a sad state of affairs. Not every party is about drugs and drinking. We youngsters like to hang out with friends with good music. How can you generalise it?”
DCP says home dept’s permission was needed
Deputy commissioner of police (zone IV) Manoj Patil said, “Knowing through newspaper ads that a foreign DJ, Dash was going to perform at Penthouze Lounge, we had immediately warned the lounge owner prior to the show to take permission from the state home department. The organiser had assured us that DJ Dash will not perform. Despite our forewarning the DJ’s performance went on so we had to take action.”
He said that even though DJ Dash was holding a business visa, it’s their department’s duty to check. He added that the party organisers were also violating the Supreme Court norms on noise pollution.
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