The popular Karachi food festival, now in its tenth year, ended with chaotic scenes on Saturday night after an unruly crowd broke of gatecrashers entered the event venue, with attendees complaining of harassment and poor security.

Several of those at the event, held at the Beach Park alongside the sea, shared distressing accounts of a rowdy crowd breaking in through one of the entrances and harassing women.

Videos of the unruly crowd went viral, prompting many to criticize the event’s organizers for their poor planning.

Another user pointed out there were ‘stags’ everywhere even though it was supposed to be an event for families

“Worst Karachi Eat ever,” opined one user as she shared her experience of getting lost and harassed at the festival.

Another user pointed out that during the melee, the organisers switched off the lights “which made the situation worse”.

A female attendee shared that she had to climb out of a crevice in the wall to get exit the venue safely.

A user with the handle @laylaaff expressed her anger at the gatecrashers, blaming them for ruining the event with ‘family only/women only’ policy.

The disturbance occurred during singer Kaifi Khalil’s performance, who stopped his concert midway and left the stage.

Some claimed that the singer was hurt from a bottle hurled in his direction. In a statement, Khalil denied the claim saying he was completely fine.

He said he’s “disappointed and upset” because of the incident where women who came to “enjoy the evening with family and friends were harassed and treated inappropriately by a group of individuals that lacked decency and common sense”.

“I request organizers to please take into consideration the safety of everyone attending when choosing the venue for such events especially the ladies, so such incidents don’t happen,” he said.

What the organisers had to say

The festival’s organisers released an apology to those at the event who had to face problems due to the mob.

“Despite our most stringent efforts, the closing day of our 10th Eat Festival saw unruly crowd behavior and some very unfortunate and sad incidents occurred. This vengeful disregard for rules and regulations gave rise to events that caused much discomfort to innocent people as gate crashers ran amuck.” the statement read.

They assured that an investigation was underway. “We are collecting the data and conducting a deeper investigation into the matter of surveillance, breach of boundary walls, and the need to up the restrictions of what is brought into the arena.”