Comic Munawar Faruqui dropped from Gurgaon fest after BJP complaint

Organisers of Gurgaon Comedy Festival have cancelled the performance of stand-up comedian Munawar Faruqui citing concerns about “public” safety.

The development comes days after the comic announced his decision to quit stand-up comedy after a number of his shows were junked across cities due to pressure created on event organisers allegedly by ‘right-wing’ activists.

According to reports, The Entertainment Factory, the organisers of the Gurgaon fest, were compelled to remove Faruqui from their line-up after receiving incessant calls and online messages opposing the comic’s participation in the festival.

The three-day festival is slated to start on December 17 at Gurgaon’s Airia Mall.

“We did not want to hurt anyone’s sentiments or put the public in danger…so we removed him from the panel. The decision was taken yesterday and we made changes in the poster and ticketing platform. For us, safety of artists and public is a priority…audience is everything,” Mubin Tisekar, co-founder of The Entertainment Factory told a prominent newspaper.

Also read: I’ve lighted up many faces: Comic Munawar Faruqui’s post after release

Tisekar said the complaints started streaming in first via tweets and then through calls, after they put out the poster of the show.

He, however, refused to name the complainants.

Reports said Arun Yadav, the head of Haryana BJP’s IT department, had filed a police complaint against Faruqui on Monday. In his complaint, Yadav had accused Faruqui of insulting Hindu gods and goddesses in his comic acts, urging police not to allow him to perform.

Yadav in a tweet on December 4 had said that Faruqui’s shows will not be allowed in Gurgaon or elsewhere in Delhi.

Faruqui with four other comics was arrested on January 1 this year on charges of allegedly hurting Hindu sentiments by passing indecent remarks against Hindu gods and goddesses in one of his shows in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore. He was granted bail by the Supreme Court in February.

Since then, multiple shows of the comic have been cancelled across cities including Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Mumbai, Raipur and Goa due to protests and threats by right-wing activists.

Faruqui, 30, recently announced that he is quitting stand-up comedy after one of his shows was cancelled in Bengaluru. Proceeds of the show were supposed to go to charitable organizations backed by late Kannada actor Puneeth Rajkumar.

“Nafrat jeet gayi, artist haar gaya (hate has won, artist has lost). I’m done, goodbye. Injustice,” he wrote in a social media post. “My name is Munawar Faruqui. And that’s been my time, you guys were (a) wonderful audience. Good bye, I’m done,” he said.