All the festival goers were forced to leave as soon as the cops arrived.
Guwahati has been hosting The Metropolis-Urban Winter Festival for the last five years and the festival has had a huge amount of success under the leadership of celebrated artist ‘Rajat Ingit’. But despite the youth’s support, the festival was forced to shut down on the last day of it’s celebrations.
According to The Wire, fhe festival was being held at the Nehru Park from the 6th – 8th of January and hosted a number of international delegates including those from the Royal Academy of Performing Arts (RAPA) in Thimpu and producer Thsering Phuntsho with over 300 participates for the various activities which were to take place with permit being granted by the police as well as the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority. However, on the 8th, senior state government minister Himanta Biswa Sarma posted this tweet which sparked a serious turn of events.
Why GMDA allowed Nehru Park for so called winter festival? The park belongs to the children. I will not tolerate atmosphere to be vitiated.
— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) January 8, 2017
The minister’s tweet was read by many people on the social media site which actually led the police as well as CRPF jawans to push over 6,000 people out, stating that it was on behalf of an order by the Chief Minister to stop the festival. The gates were also closed and they cut down all electricity supply while the delegates were left sitting in the dark.
After the festival was shut down, the GMDA officials stated that the festival was shut down because they disregarded certain norms. We don’t know if it was a politically motivated move or not, but we have to say that it wasn’t cool to shut down the festival.