Author:
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: June 20, 2001.
A cinema hall screening Hindi film
Gadar in Bhopal was ransacked by an unruly mob on Tuesday afternoon. The
mob allegedly were enraged by certain scenes of the film offended religious
sentiments of Muslims.
Eyewitness said about 300 men, armed
with swords, stones and petrol bombs, attacked Lily Talkies cinema hall.
Police had to fire tear gas shells to disperse the protestors.
The miscreants surrounded the cinema
hall before the police, which was already stationed there, could react.
Several vehicles were destroyed in the action. Petrol bombs were thrown
at scooters parked in the cinema hall premises setting ablaze two vehicles.
Passers-by were not spared by the
miscreants and a youth on his motorcycle was stabbed and injured. Police
later rushed the youth to the hospital.
Eyewitnesses, the miscreants allegedly
led by district Indian Youth Congress president Arif Masood gathered at
a place about 500 metres from the cinema hall before going on rampage.
Arif Masood had met the district administration in the morning and, according
to the police, assured that no untoward incident would take place during
the protest.
"Masood had himself not seen the
film and we persuaded him to watch the film along with 15 other people
and point out the scenes to which he had objection. He had agreed to this,"
the district administration said. Masood, however, denied he ever reached
an agreement with district administration.
Admitting that he had not yet seen
the film, Masood said, "Over 100 youths came to me and told that the film
had objectionable scenes including the heroine offering Namaz with 'sindoor'
applied on her forehead, use of the word Shariat several times and derogatory
use of the word Musalman. All this is anti-Islamic and I apprised the police
of this. I told the police that the youths were now not listening to me
and anything could happen."
Later, top police officers, including
Inspector General of Police Nanden Dubey, Superintendent of Police A P
Singh and CSP (TT Nagar) Vivek Sharma, also reached the spot. The Rapid
Action Force (RAF) was also summoned but before its personnel could reach
the spot the district police had already brought the situation under control.
The RAF later staged a march in the area to warn the miscreants.
Note from Hindu Vivek Kendra:
It would be interesting to see
how the secularists will react on this one.
