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.
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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.
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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.