Hyderabad: Few days after the show announcement made by stand-up comic Munawar Faruqui, Telangana unit of Bharatiya Janata Party has declared that it would not allow the show to take place at any cost. This disapproval comes four days after Munawar announced that he would be performing a show titled “Dhandho” in Hyderabad on January 9.
State BJP president Bandi Sanjay on Saturday gave a call to the workers of BJP Yuva Morcha to go all out to prevent Faruqui from performing in Hyderabad. “It is your responsibility to prevent Faruqui from entering the city,” he told them at a function at the state party office.
On December 22, Faruqui took to his Instagram to announce his show titled ‘Dhando’ in Hyderabad on January 9. The sale of tickets would be done online, though the venue of the event has been kept a secret.
Firebrand BJP lawmaker from Hyderabad T Raja Singh also wrote a letter to Director General of Police M Mahender Reddy asking him not to grant permission to Faruqui for staging his show in the city, as it was meant for creating hatred against Hindu religion and gods.
Singh reminded that Faruqui had earlier been arrested and imprisoned for 37 days in the past for creating hatred against Hindu gods. “He also made serious comments against Union home minister Amit Shah in a programme at Indore in January. He also made comments against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Godhra incident and Kar Sevaks etc,” he pointed out.
He warns of protests by hindu supporters if the show is staged, and would disturb peace of Hyderabad.
It may be mentioned that on December 17, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s son and state information technology minister K T Rama Rao welcomed stand-up comedians like Faruqui and Kunal Kamra to stage their shows in Hyderabad.
“Hyderabad is truly cosmopolitan and offers stand-up comedians an open invite. We don’t cancel shows of Munawar Faruqui and Kunal Kamra just because we are not aligned with them politically,” KTR said.
In November, Faruqui”s show in Bengaluru was cancelled after protests by Hindu right-wing groups, who alleged that he had hurt their religious sentiments in one of his shows. Besides Bengaluru, his shows in Gujarat, Gurugram, Chhattisgarh, and Goa too were cancelled following threats from various right-wing groups.
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