Following the total number of deaths have gone up to three at Sunburn Festival the opposition demanded a CBI inquiry into the matter along with the detention of the festival organizers, While the organizer and tourism minister preferred to stay away from the media, the state cultural minister Govind Gaude on Monday said that no one forced people to attend the Sunburn Event.
According to the report, with the third person collapsing at the sunburn venue, the total number of deaths has gone up to three at Sunburn Festival which finally concluded on the 29th of December.
The tourism minister has made a claim that the festival generated the revenue of two hundred and fifty crores to the state tourism industry. Although there are no supporting documents for his statement but in our country we all believe what the minster claims hence it is fine.
It may be recalled that in the previous year there was one death of a young girl from Bengaluru who came down to attend the music festival in Goa and collapsed at the venue. It was confirmed as the death due to an overdose of drugs, but this time there is a delay in the post-mortem report and the reason behind the death is not yet known.
At this juncture, the Goa Minister become insensitive to the issue and says that no one forced them to come down for the festival. “The government is not forcing the youth to go and attend the Sunburn festival. They go on their own. No one is forced to go there.” Said Cultural minister Govind Gawade to the Media.
In fact, Mr Gawade was trying to clarify that the festivals such as Sunburn are not promoted by the Goa Government. Gawade said the government was not responsible for such a massive crowd at the festival.
“We are not distributing any passes to anyone. It is the music enthusiasts who like to go there, they do it out of their own wish,” he said adding that the state government has always been promoting local culture and music through different events.
“When we speak of local culture, we also include western culture, which is taught in government-run institutions like the Kala Academy,” he added.
Goa BJP leader Rajendra Arlekar on Monday wondered whether such festivals were required for promotion of tourism. “Do we really need events like Sunburn to promote tourism? Can we not redefine our priorities in this sector? Let’s ponder…,” the former Minister tweeted..
There is a huge discrepancy within the ruling party itself over the arrangement of the music festival as some of the members support the festival while others opposing.
Meanwhile, the opposition has openly alleged the drug trade going on at the Sunburn festival. The Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president Varad Mardolkar said that the drugs were openly sold at the event venue but police did not take any action against the culprits. “If the police had paid heed to our request, the third death could have been avoided,” Mr Mardolkar added.
The sources said that the Tourism Minister and the Festival Organisers were not available to comment on this, while police said that no case of drugs was detected at the Sunburn Festival this year.
The question here is, does the music lovers carry their own drugs with them? If, yes then how they could pass through the barriers where the water bottles from outside are also not allowed? What are the special police and dog squad doing? There are many questions and fewer answers and hence keeping quiet and watching what’s going on is the only option left at the moment.
Source: The Hindu
