Police say no to Pokemon hunting from Azad Maidan

MUMBAI: A pokewalk, which was to take place in south Mumbai on Saturday, was cancelled after police said no to the organisers’ demand for using Azad Maidan as the

MUMBAI: A pokewalk, which was to take place in south Mumbai on Saturday, was cancelled after police said no to the organisers’ demand for using Azad Maidan as the venue for players of popular mobile game ‘Pokemon Go’ to assemble. This was not the first pokewalk in the city, which has seen three such events between July 9 and July 17. Interestingly, two pokewalk events took place at Churchgate, where permission for the July 23 event was earlier denied

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Police stated that Azad Maidan was reserved for rallies and protests and that games and allied activities could not be permitted there. The organisers had approached Azad Maidan police seeking permission after the Marine Drive police refused permission for the event to be held at Churchgate.

“We were told that permission couldn’t be given as the assembly’s monsoon session was underway. When I met the zonal deputy commissioner for obtaining permission to conduct the walk at Azad Maidan, he refused despite me asking permission to use the ground for only half an hour. I cancelled the event a couple of days ago,” said Tanny Joseph, 23, who had announced the event.

The stretch from Churchgate to Marine Drive had witnessed pokewalks twice — on July 9 and July 17 — which is contrary to the belief that police was not allowing the events owing to security reasons. The third pokewalk was conducted at Bandra on July 16.

Manoj Sharma, deputy commissioner of police zone I said, “I suggested them to hold the event in a private hall for that matter, however, they were hell-bent on using Azad Maidan, stating that the event was a zero-profit one. They did not come up with any alternate venues and Azad Maidan could not be given for this. The security aspect was not in the picture at all.”

Police officials said that if there were orders to not allow pokewalks in the city citing security or any other reasons, there would not have been these events.

Joseph, however, said that despite cancelling the event, over 100 persons had still assembled on Marine Drive, which was the earlier venue for his event.