British singer Ed Sheeran is currently in India for his Mathematics tour. Many videos of his stay in India are going viral these days. On Sunday afternoon he took to performing to a small crowd in India’s tech capital, Bengaluru when he was cut off by police citing that he didn’t have the permission to be out playing on the street.

In the video that circulated on social media, Ed can be seen wearing a t-shirt and shorts holding an acoustic guitar playing to a crowd along the Church street of Bengaluru. The policeman unplugged Sheeran’s microphone when he was in the middle of his hit song ‘Shape of you’. Sheeran gave a shrug on this action, and the crowd had some shocking reactions.

Responding to the incident, Central Bengaluru Deputy Commissioner of Police Shekar.T.Tekkannanavar said that he had refused to give the permission for the busking performance. He told ANI, “A member among the event organizers came to meet me to seek permission for the street-side performance at the Church street. I refused to give permission as rthe Church street gets very crowded. That is the reason he was asked to vacate the place.”

Sheeran however shared via his Instagram story that he did have the permission to perform on Church street. He wrote, “We had permission to busk by the way, hence us playing in that exact spot, was planned out before, it wasn’t just us randomly turning up.”

What is busking?

Busking refers to an act of entertaining people in a public space, often as a compensation. This usually includes singing, dancing or playing an instrument.

Ed Sheeran’s music tour in India

As mentioned above, Ed Sheeran is currently in India performing as a part of his Mathematics tour. He has performed the first show on Sunday, with two more shows scheduled in Shillong on February 12 and Leisure Valley ground on February 15. For the first show, Ed Sheeran took the center stage at NICE grounds in Bengaluru, India’s Silicon Valley.

His performance on the stage came hours after he was refused for his busking performance on the street. Sheeran performed alongside Grammy nominated Indian Singer Shilpa Rao, singing the latter’s track Chuttamalle in Telugu. He also performed a remix of ‘Shape of you’ with legendary Indian composer and producer, A.R. Rahman a few days back.  

The India leg of the tour will follow  Ed Sheeran performing six nights at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Gymnasium Centre in Hangzhou, China and then in United Arab Emirates (UAE).