‘No video of Munawar Faruqui insulting Hindu deities,’ say police two days after arresting him
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The Indore Police on Sunday said they had no video evidence to show that comedian Munawar Faruqui insulted Hindu deities during a performance at a cafe in the city, The Indian Express reported. Faruqui had been arrested on Friday for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.
Kamlesh Sharma, the town inspector of Tukaganj Police Station, told the newspaper that the video submitted by the complainant showed another comedian making jokes about the deity Ganesh. “There’s no evidence against him [Faruqui] for insulting Hindu deities or Union Minister Amit Shah,” Sharma said.
The complaint against Faruqui was filed by Eklavya Singh Gaur, the chief of Hindutva group Hind Rakshak Sangathan, according to reports. Gaur is the son of Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Malini Gaur. Faruqui was also accused of making derogatory remarks about Shah, and of allegedly mocking the kar sevaks who were killed in the Godhra massacre of 2002.
Meanwhile, several comedians spoke out against Faruqui’s arrest. “You can’t stop jokes and laughter,” actor and comedian Vir Das tweeted. “Not because comedians are performing it, but because people need to laugh. Harder you try, the more you’re going to be laughed at, now, and by history. Anyone who has ever tried to control humour, now has a category of jokes devoted to them.”
You can't stop jokes and laughter. Not because comedians are performing it, but because people need to laugh. Harder you try, the more you're going to be laughed at, now, and by history.
— Vir Das (@thevirdas) January 3, 2021
Anyone who has ever tried to control humour, now has a category of jokes devoted to them.
He also posted a screenshot of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tweet from 2017, which spoke about the importance of satire and humour. “I’m just going to leave this here,” Das wrote.
I'm just going to leave this here. pic.twitter.com/C8eqqDzPya
— Vir Das (@thevirdas) January 3, 2021
Comedian Rohan Joshi shared a video on Instagram of Faruqui trying to reason with the people who said they were offended by his jokes. “Turns out now you can just assault people while they’re doing their job and the cops will take ‘them’ to the police station,” Joshi wrote.
Varun Grover, the writer of critically acclaimed web series Sacred Games, also shared the video of Faruqui on his Instagram story. “A fellow Indian, a fellow comedian is in jail and got beaten up by a mob because of the words he uttered,” Grover wrote. “Here he’s trying to logically, calmly present his case but our systems now just want to brutally silence every voice.”
Grover added: “They don’t want to hear, they don’t want to even argue, they want to simply erase every shred of individual thought, every iota of reason. And we the people of the greatest civilization of earth are ok with it.”
Faruqui had also been allegedly roughed up by the members of the group Hind Rakshak Sangathan, who forcefully took him to the Tukoganj police station on Friday along with the organisers of the event.
Besides Faruqui, four other arrested persons were identified as Nalin Yadav, Prakhar Vyas, Edwin Anthony and Priyam Vyas.
They were booked under sections section 269 (unlawful or negligent act likely to spread the infection of any disease dangerous to life), 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and other related provisions of the Indian Penal Act.
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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.
