The Telangana unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday warned of dire consequences if the state government will allow stand-up comedian Munawar Faruqui to perform in a show, scheduled for August 20, in Hyderabad.
“Let them see what will happen if he is invited to stage a show in Hyderabad. Wherever the programme is held, we will beat him up. Whoever offers him a venue, we will set it afire,” BJP lawmaker from Goshamahal constituency T Raja Singh said in a video, posted on social media.
The BJP leader said in the past Faruqui had cracked jokes on Hindu gods, thereby hurting their sentiments.“We will definitely teach him a lesson for abusing our Lord Ram if he comes to Telangana. This is a challenge,” he said.
Faruqui on Wednesday had taken to his social media to announce his show ‘Dongri to Nowhere’. Sharing the post, he wrote, ‘Hyderabad, Link in Bio’ followed by a fire emoji.
Previously, Faruqui was scheduled to perform his show ‘Dhandho’ in Hyderabad on January 9, but it was cancelled due to surge in Covid-19 cases.At that time too, the Telangana BJP had declared that it “won’t allow the show to take place at any cost”.
While state BJP president Bandi Sanjay gave a call to the youth to stop Faruqui’s event, Raja Singh wrote to director general of police M Mahender Reddy to not give permission for the show “as it was meant for creating hatred against Hindu religion and gods.”
Singh said that Faruqui was earlier arrested and imprisoned for 37 days for creating hatred against Hindu gods. “He also made serious comments against Union home minister Amit Shah during an event at Indore in January. He also commented against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Godhra incident and Kar Sevaks etc,” Singh said.
It is pertinent to mention that on December 17,Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s son and state information technology minister K T Rama Rao had welcomed stand-up comedians like Faruqui and Kunal Kamra to perform 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 had said.
Faruqui”s show in Bengaluru was cancelled in November after protests by right-wing groups, who alleged that he had hurt their religious sentiments. His shows were also cancelled in Gujarat, Gurugram, Chhattisgarh, and Goa.
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