Bengaluru, Feb 20: COVID-19 cases in Karnataka declined from 1,137 cases on Saturday to 1,001 cases on Sunday while 18 deaths took place today. These took the total infected and fatalities till date to 39,36,586 and 39,795, said the State Health Department.

A bulletin said 1,780 people were discharged. The total recoveries were 38,84,120 so far. Active cases stood at 12,634.

Bengaluru urban district reported 485 infections and 12 deaths.

Other districts too had fresh cases: 93 in Tumakuru, 51 in Belagavi, 48 in Mysuru, 46 in Ballari and 42 in Kodagu.

There were deaths in six districts, including the two in Dharwad.

There were zero fatalities in 25 districts.

The test positivity rate for the day was 1.42 per cent and the case fatality rate was 1.79 per cent.

As many as 70,290 tests were conducted and they included 53,503 RT-PCR tests. This took the total tests so far to 6.40 crore.

There were 19,998 people who got inoculated and the number of those vaccinated so far was 9.96 crore, the department said.

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Amritsar, Jan 16 (PTI): The SGPC on Thursday wrote to Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, seeking a ban on the release of Kangana Ranaut's movie 'Emergency' saying it "tarnishes" the image of Sikhs and "misrepresents" history.

Actor and BJP MP Ranaut's 'Emergency' is slated to release in cinemas on January 17.

In the letter to Mann, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee chief Harjinder Singh Dhami expressed strong objection to Ranaut's film.

Dhami said that if the film is released in Punjab, it will spark "outrage and anger" in the Sikh community and therefore it is the responsibility of the government to ban its release in the state.

The SGPC, an apex gurdwara body, had earlier also protested the film.

"It has come to our attention that the movie 'Emergency' produced by BJP MP Kangana Ranaut is going to be released on 17th January 2025 in cinemas in different cities of Punjab and the tickets have also started to be booked," its letter to Mann read.

Dhami said the SGPC had also protested the release of the movie in a letter to the Punjab Chief Secretary on November 14 last year.

"But it is sad that the Punjab government has not taken any step till now. If this film is released on January 17, 2025, then it is natural to create outrage and anger in the Sikh world," the current letter read.

Dhami said the SGPC will submit a letter also to all the deputy commissioners in Punjab, seeking a ban on the film in the state.

The SGPC denounced the "character assassination" of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the Khalistani militant killed in 1984 in a military operation.

"If this film is released in Punjab, we will be forced to strongly oppose it at the state level," Dhami said.

In August last year, the SGPC sent a legal notice to the producers of the 'Emergency' film, alleging that it "misrepresented" the character and history of Sikhs, and asked them to remove the objectionable scenes depicting "anti-Sikh" sentiments.

In the notice, the producers of the film, including Kangana Ranaut, were asked to remove the trailer released on August 14 from all public and social media platforms and tender a written apology to the Sikh community.

The SGPC objected to film writing separate letters to the Minister of Information and Broadcasting and the Central Board of Film Certification.