Pune cops shut down Rahman's concert midway for flouting time limit

Pune, May 1:  Adopting a stern approach, the Pune Police stopped midway a mega-concert of Oscar-winner music composer A.R. Rahman, disappointing his thousands in the audiences and his fans.

The incident happened late on Sunday night. The show was held at a sprawling open-air venue near the Rajbahadur Mills with several thousands of fans singing along, swaying or dancing to some of the top tunes of Rahman in his long musical journey of over 30 years.

However, at 10 p.m. sharp, a senior police officer, waving a torch on the dark stage and signalling, ordered the organisers to immediately halt the show as it was exceeding the permissible time limit.

Around that time, Rahman, 56, was himself performing his superhit number, "Chal Chhaiya, Chhaiyaa" and the cop went right up to him, pointed at his wristwatch and after apparently giving him an earful, asked that the show must end right away, to which the ace music director complied.

As some musicians apparently ignored the directive and continued to play, the peeved officer went up to one of them and warned that if they didn't wind up, they could face the music for violating the time norms.

When the policeman went to the stage and the concert was ordered to shut down, he was greeted with huge howls of protests from the fans in the audience who were enjoying it for over two hours.

On his part, Rahman -- who shot to fame with his immortal tunes in 'Roja' (1992), himself withdrew from the stage and quietly departed without making any fuss or comments.

Minutes later, the lights went up at the venue, the crowds continued to shriek their displeasure, but the musiconcert had ended and the place was vacated without any more untoward incident by early this morning.