The licensing unit of Delhi Police on Saturday, 27 August, denied permission for stand-up comedian Munawar Faruqui's show slated for 28 August in the city's Kedarnath Auditorium.
This comes on the heels of the Hindu Sena and Vishwa Hindu Parishad's (VHP) letters to the Delhi Police commissioner and the commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), asking them to cancel his upcoming show over his "remarks against Hindu Gods and Goddesses."
Following this, the Central District Police wrote a report to the unit stating that the show will affect "communal harmony in the area."
Meanwhile, DCP (Central District) Shweta Chauhan told news agency ANI that the show was "cancelled keeping security reasons in mind...It was to ensure that there shouldn't be any threat to law and order and communal harmony doesn't turn into disharmony."
Over the last month, while the comedian's Bengaluru show got cancelled, his Hyderabad show was conducted amid threats from groups led by now arrested and suspended BJP MLA T Raja Singh.
Raja Singh had threatened to burn down his set, and had posted a YouTube video making inflammatory remarks against Muslims and Prophet Muhammad after the show.
Controversy around Faruqui had first surfaced when he was arrested along with four others in 2021 by Indore police on the basis of a complaint filed by a fringe right-wing group's leader for allegedly making objectionable remarks against Hindu gods and Home Minister Amit Shah.
Although he was later released on bail, he has continuously invited wrath from right-wing groups over his "jokes on Hinduism."
‘Is India at 75 So Fragile?’: Mahua Moitra Reacts
Reacting to the reports, Trinamool Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra took to Twitter calling the Delhi police 'spineless' for cancelling Munawar's show.
"Is India@75’s communal harmony so fragile today that it is disrupted by comedy show?" she added.
Responding to her tweet, British-Indian writer and journalist, Tunku Varadarajan tweeted, "As for the VHP, don't they see the contradiction between their trumpeting of the greatness of Hinduism, on the one hand, & their inability to let a man tell a few jokes, on the other?"
Ashok Swain, Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, said in a tweet, "If a country can't protect a comedian in its capital, how can it protect its border from China? #MunawarFaruqui (sic)."
Author and journalist Om Thanvi also shared the news on his Twitter.
(With inputs from ANI.)
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