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‘Will burn down venue’: BJP dares Telangana to allow Munawar Faruqui’s Hyd show
Munawar Faruqui announced his show, Dongri to Nowhere, in Hyderabad on August 20 on Instagram. His last show scheduled for January 9 was cancelled due to Covid-19 pandemic
HYDERABAD: A legislator of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Telangana on Thursday threatened to attack stand-up comedian Munawar Faruqui and burn down the stage if the state government permits him to perform in Hyderabad.
In a video message circulated on social media, BJP lawmaker from Hyderabad’s Goshamahal constituency T Raja Singh said the comedian had cracked jokes on Hindu gods and should not be allowed.
“Let them see what will happen if he is invited to stage a show in Hyderabad. Wherever the programme is held, we shall beat him up. Whoever offers him a venue, we shall set it afire,” he warned.
“We shall definitely teach him a lesson for abusing our Lord Ram if he comes to Telangana. This is a challenge,” he said.
Faruqui announced his show – Dongri to Nowhere – in Hyderabad on August 20 on Instagram on Wednesday. Sharing the post, he wrote, “Hyderabad, Link in Bio” followed by a fire emoji. The tickets, priced at ₹499 onwards, would be sold on online ticket booking platform…”.
The standup comedian was originally scheduled to perform in Hyderabad on January 9, but it was cancelled due to the surge in Covid-19 cases in Telangana.
Then, too, the Telangana BJP declared that it will not 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 at any cost, Raja Singh wrote to Telangana director general of police (DGP) M Mahender Reddy to demand that he shouldn’t be given permission since it was meant to create hatred against Hindu religion and gods.
Singh reminded 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 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.
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.
