Naseeruddin Shah arrived in Ajmer to deliver the keynote address at the fifth edition of Ajmer Literature Festival at 2:30 pm on Friday. However, the members of right-wing organizations, protested against the actor and demanded him to apologize for his statements. They burnt the posters of the festival which had Naseeruddin Shah’s photo.
Ras Bihari Gaur, organiser of the event, said that they alerted the cops after the protests began in the morning. But, the protestors had entered the venue of the festival before the scheduled inaugural to disrupt it. So, they were forced to call the veteran actor and requested him to not come to venue.
The veteran actor received huge backlash after he spoke openly about the rising mob violence in the country and how people would be more worried about a cow than a person. This was apparently in reference to the recent incident in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr where a cow’s death was of more importance than the killing of a policeman. “I feel anxious for my children because tomorrow if a mob surrounds them and asks, ‘Are you a Hindu or a Muslim?’ they will have no answer. It worries me that I don’t see the situation improving anytime soon,” he said.
