Lila is a young woman who attended the Solis concert in Lahore at Oasis Golf & Aqua Resort on April 13 with a group of friends- Lila and her sister were sexually assaulted at the event. The Solis Festival is Pakistan’s biggest international music festival. It features international musicians and DJs such as FDVM and Burak Yeter.
Lila took to Instagram to describe the disturbing incident that has shaken her mentally and emotionally.
According to her video, Full Circle Agency and SSB Bouncers should be held accountable for the sexual molestation at the event. The organizers of the Solis Festival are investigating the incident.
Lila says that she decided to speak up because everyone already knew about the incident, but not the whole story.
Lila posted a video on IGTV unfolding the incident,” When I got there [at the Solis Festival], I noticed there were a lot of guys. That really didn’t surprise me because, in Pakistan, the male community outnumbers the girls in public all the time. People were staring, people always stare. It wasn’t a big deal.”
But the harassment escalated very quickly, Lila says.
“As soon as we got there, I had issues with people trying to touch me and my male friends would deal with it. Towards the end of the event, an incident happened that made it really scary. It felt like a life and death thing. That’s what it felt like.”
Lila shared, “A security guard had grabbed me-physically, sexually, aggressively. I turned around and noticed who it was. I told my guy friend who talked to him and the guy pretended to be an actual security guard and asked me if everything’s alright.”
She says that when she stressed to her friend that it was the guard who had harassed her, he confronted the guard again who asked both to step to the side.
“As soon as I turned around to face my friend, I don’t know where my other friends went, there were so many hands grabbing me below the waist- like millions of hands. It seemed like it was planned. I don’t know if these people knew each other but they acted as they did. It was really gross, really disgusting.”
Lila added,” My sister was dealing with a harasser at another part of the venue but came to help when she saw I was in trouble.” Lila claims both sisters were molested by the crowd at the Solis Festival.
“We both started screaming. People kept touching us. We didn’t know what to do. At first, I thought I was going insane. I did a 360 turn and felt hands touching me at every turn. I realized it wasn’t me.”
She added that she and her sister’s friends tried to shield them with their bodies while other friends fought with the crowd who tried to isolate the women from their friends. She estimates that the crowd of harassers consisted of about 30 men all aged above and around 30 years.
“I tried self-defense, I tried hitting them, but there were too many of them. The guys who were holding on to my sister and I were being hit so much, the crowd wanted to tear them away from us. You could see hatred in their eyes. It was a proper mob attack” Lila shares.
“Their intention was much worse than touching and feeling two girls. The way they were aggressively trying to pull our pants down, also hitting us too, it was quite obvious what they wanted to do,” she says.
Lila’s sister fainted at one point which made her realize that she had to get out of the crowd to save herself.
“I put my head down; I put my arms out and hit everyone I possibly could. I ran at full speed just to get out of the crowd. It seemed like it was never-ending. It seemed like I was stuck in one place. It seemed like I was so vulnerable and there was nothing I could do.”
Their friend went and brought Lila’s sister out of the crowd.
“I instantly threw up. I felt so disgusted with the people who did it and with myself. I’m so embarrassed. My friends tried to tell other security guards, they said there was nothing they could do, you have to talk to the heads about it.”
Lila says that when she shared her experience on social media, a lot of other girls shared similar incidents.
Lila expressed her disappointment at the state of security at the event. “First, stags shouldn’t have been allowed. Second, security should have been proper. The Solis Festival team did not have proper security, which is very bad. It was a guard who initiated the attack on me and my friends.”
She added, “I want the DJs to know who they were playing for- because if I was a DJ, I definitely wouldn’t want to play for a crowd like that.”
“I don’t want to feel embarrassed about it even though I do and it sucks. I don’t want harassment to be such a normal thing. It’s been three days since it happened-it already feels like it’s my fault, I already feel like it’s a normal thing, which is so sad. I don’t want it to feel like that. I want other girls to be careful and know that it does happen and that they’re not alone.”
The organizers of the Solis Festival claim, “We do events all over the world under the brand Solis. We get the talent and then it’s executed by a local team in Pakistan. We were alerted about this incident by our local representatives, and we reached out to the woman in question. She hasn’t responded to us yet. We will take all the action we can from our side. But it’s also the Pakistani people’s responsibility to end this stuff. How can we keep bringing international music to Pakistan if people don’t know how to behave?”
The SSB Bouncers Squad Company that provided security for the event claimed “If this happened, other security guards or people among the crowd would’ve taken action against that there and then, as it is the nature of us Pakistanis to offer a hand at the slightest of incident taking place.”
There is a reason why stags are not allowed to such events. Men without the company of their own family can cause a lot of trouble for girls at the event. There was a reason why such rules came into existence. There are several more similar incidents reported at many different festivals and events around the country. It is a need to upgrade the security system of Pakistan to avoid such incidents and to save our friends and family from such traumatic encounters that can stay with us for a very long time. People need to understand the mental and emotional damage caused by such a behavior and it is completely unfair to say that fun is only for the men. Men and women, both should be able to enjoy such events. It is an appeal to every organizer in Pakistan to make sure their events are safe for the people attending such festivals.
