India: BJP youth wing vandalises theatre, disrupts film on Kashmir in Hyderbad

From: The Hindu
HYDERABAD, September 8, 2013
Updated: September 8, 2013 02:16 IST
BJP youth wing vandalises theatre, disrupts film on Kashmir

Staff Reporter

Activists of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), youth wing of the BJP, disrupted a short film show on Kashmir and allegedly assaulted the show organisers after barging into the L.V. Prasad preview theatre at Banjara Hills here on Saturday afternoon.

The attackers were accompanied by a Kashmiri pandit, Rahul Razdan, working as software engineer here. The group barged into the theatre raising slogans against the organisers claiming that the movie was against the Indian government and the Army.

They damaged furniture and glasses and ransacked whatever object was on their way. The mob first went into the projector room on the third floor, destroyed the monitor and tried to take away a laptop. Filmmaker Siddartha Gigoo, who was invited for the show, too was assaulted.

The show was part of the film festival, “Kashmir, Before Our Eyes.” It was held in few other cities across the country earlier.

The Banjara Hills police said Rahul had come to the theatre along with the BJYM workers claiming that they would observe a ‘silent protest.’

“We have caught nine of them, including Rahul, after a chase,” the police said. Cases under Sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 145 (joining or continuing unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapons) and 353 (deterring a public servant from discharging his duties) of the IPC were registered against them.

Ajay Raina, filmmaker and curator of the festival, said 50-60 students led by a Kashmiri pandit barged into the venue just before the screening was to start and began to smash the equipment. “They injured one person and stole my laptop which had all the films we planned to screen. However, we have decided not to cower before vandalism,” he said.



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From: New Indian Express

50-member mob disrupts Kashmiri film fest in city

By Express News Service - HYDERABAD

Published: 08th September 2013 08:35 AM

Last Updated: 08th September 2013 08:35 AM

As many as 50 people disrupted ‘Kashmir - Before Our Eyes’- a six-day film festival which was scheduled to be conducted at Prasad’s labs on Saturday afternoon, a documentary filmmaker whose work was supposed to be screened on Saturday evening said.

“There were hardly around 5-6 people at the venue when around 50 people barged into the control room of the Prasad Labs’ preview theatre. They broke glass windows and vandalised equipment used for screening and took away one Ajay Raina’s laptop, who is a film maker and the curator” Sanjay Kak, a documentary filmmaker said.

“We were trying to show different shades of Kashmir in the festival, if anybody had any issue, it could have been sorted out by talking but such attacks were not called for” Subhadra Jalali, one of the organiser said and added that all the filmmakers are migrants from Kashmir. Sanjay informed that a young technician working at the lab was hospitalised after he was beaten up by the mob when he stopped them from snatching away the laptop.

“I don’t think he knows anything about the issue, the innocent boy was beaten up by the mob”, informed Subhadra. “The mob also attacked and tried to drag me to the ground floor, but I resisted” Sanjay said. An organiser said that the talks were going on at the venue as per schedule and the remaining programs will be conducted at another venue.
The festival was conducted successfully in other states and it is scheduled to be held at Pune and Delhi in the end of this month.