Comedian among 5 held for 'indecent' remarks on Hindu deities
Indore: Munawar Faruqui, a stand-up comedian from Gujarat, was arrested along with four others after the son of a BJP MLA complained against him for alleged indecent remarks made against Hindu deities and Union Home Minister Amit Shah during a show at Indore in Madhya Pradesh, a police official said on Saturday.
Police said the comedy show was held at a cafe in 56 Dukan area of Indore on Friday.
Eklavya Singh Gaur (36), son of local BJP legislator Malini Laxman Singh Gaur, filed the complaint in this regard, police said.
Gaur said he and his associates had gone to the show as audience, where the comedian made the remarks. They objected to his comments and created ruckus over it. They also forced the event to stop.
"A case was filed late on Friday night against stand- up comedian Munawar Faruqui, a resident of Junagadh in Gujarat, and four Indore-based persons based on a written complaint filed by Eklavya Singh Gaur, who also submitted a controversial video footage of the comedy show," in-charge of Tukoganj police station Kamlesh Sharma said.
"All the five accused were later arrested," he said.
As per the complaint, indecent remarks were passed against Hindu gods and goddesses and Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the show, Sharma said.
Four other arrested persons were identified as Edwin Anthony, Prakhar Vyas, Priyam Vyas and Nalin Yadav, the police said.
All of them were booked under IPC sections 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), section 269 (unlawful or negligent act likely to spread the infection of any disease dangerous to life) and other relevant provisions.
Meanwhile, talking to reporters, Gaur said, "After purchasing the tickets, my associates and I went to the comedy show, where Faruqui was performing as the main comedian. The show mocked the Hindu deities by passing indecent comments.
The Godhra incident and Union Home Minister Amit Shah were also mentioned inappropriately during the show."
"Such objectionable talks were going on during the comedy show. We made a video of them and stopped the show by taking the audience out of the cafe. Then we caught the comedians and organisers of the show and took them to Tukoganj police station," he said.
Gaur, who is also the convener of local outfit Hind Rakshak, alleged that the instruction to maintain physical distance was also not being followed during the comedy show and it was organised without the permission of the authorities.
At least 100 spectators were sitting in a small hall of the cafe, he said.
Some media reports said that the stand-up comedian was also thrashed by the workers of Hind Rakshak during the ruckus in the cafe.
However, Gaur denied the charge.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
