Kolkata concert cancelled for lack of police clearance, four held

The city police pulled the plug at the last minute on the musical soiree Hope 2007, backed by state sports and transport...

The city police pulled the plug at the last minute on the musical soiree Hope 2007, backed by state sports and transport minister Subhas Chakraborty and ordered refund of tickets with barely four hours for the show to start.

For the maverick minister — who had secured the support of his mentor Jyoti Basu in May, this year, for this programme after it was almost cancelled at the intervention of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee — it was a strong rebuff.

In May, Chakraborty was forced to deny organisers of the show the use of the Salt Lake Stadium. The show was later shifted to the Netaji Indoor Stadium.

Story continues below this ad

The show, organised by Flash Forward Communication, Health & Wealth and the Lions Club of Dalhousie, in aid of the Subodh Mitra Cancer Research Centre, was to have brought stars like Salman Khan, Diya Mirza, Daler Mehendi, Alisha Chinai, Johny Lever and Amrita Arora together.

At a hurriedly called press conference at the Lalbazar headquarters at 2 pm today, Deputy Commissioner (headquarters), Pradip Chatterjee, said four people had been arrested in connection with the show. Three others are absconding.

Chatterjee, flanked by DC (South) Ajay Kumar, said the show has been stopped because the organisers did not have the final clearance from the police and was going ahead with a provisional green signal.

Second, the police said, the organisers did not have the final consent of the stars who were supposed to take part in the show and whose names were being used in the publicity posters.

Story continues below this ad

“We checked with all actors and singers to see if they would be turning up,” said Chatterjee. “Diya Mirza and Salman Khan informed us that they would not be coming since they have not received the final payment.”

Sources said that the way Kolkata Police had prepared the case, showed the hand of police commissioner Prasun Mukherjee, who enjoys strong backing of the chief minister.

Earlier, Bhattacharjee had backed Mukherjee for the top post at the Cricket Association of Bengal, upsetting the sports minister and leading to a public row. For Chakraborty, the rebuff was reminiscent of Hope 86, the first such event from which he had backed away only to face strong criticism from culture hawks in the CPI(M), led by Bhattacharjee, then a mere party leader.