Popular detergent brand Surf Excel is facing a boycott movement from netizens who are objecting to one of its Holi special advertisement promoting communal harmony between Muslims and Hindu.

The one-minute video advertisement portrays a Hindu girl helping a Muslim boy reach a nearby mosque unstained. While other kids in the streets are busy throwing colors on commuters of the streets to mark the occasion of Hindu festival Holy.

The girl dressed in White dress, asks the kids throwing colors to stain her with colors and continues to do so until all the kids run out of color filled balloons and instruments to further color someone. The girl then calls upon her Muslim friend to come out of his house as he won’t be colored now.

The ad ends with popular tagline of the brand ‘Daag ache hai’ (Stains are good).

The advertisement which was published on February 27 this year has garnered over 8.7 million views on YouTube till date besides being shared by several other channels and pages on various social media platforms.

While the Hindustan Unilever, owner of Surf Excel, released the ad to promote communal harmony between two communities, it hasn’t gone down too well with a section of people finding it humiliating, Hindu phobic. Some event went on to add that the advertisement promotes Love Jihad hence hurting the sentiments of Hindu religion.

People took to twitter to express their dissent over the ad and called for boycotting the brand Surf Excel for releasing such contents.

However, people were also seen appreciating the work of brand for promoting communal harmony and also defended the ad video on micro-blogging site twitter. 

 

Here's how people supported the ad

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Mumbai (PTI): An empty double-decker electric bus was gutted in a fire during servicing at a BEST depot in Mumbai's Kurla area on Sunday, officials said, adding that nobody was injured.

The blaze broke out inside the Kurla BEST bus depot near Kanakia Building at 4.14 pm, according to preliminary information from the Mumbai Fire Brigade.

The parked bus was unoccupied at the time of the incident.

Fire brigade personnel rushed to the spot and brought the blaze under control. The exact cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained, they said.

No injuries were reported in the incident, officials added.

The Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) Undertaking has hired 50 electric double-decker buses from Switch Mobility in its fleet of around 2,700 buses.