Joining the radical voice, activists of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) members took out a protest march on Friday morning, demanding a ban on the film ‘Nanak Shah Fakir’ across the country.
The march was led by district SAD unit president Upkar Singh Sandhu. Representatives of theShiromani Istri Akali Dal and various functionaries of SGPC also took part in the protest march.
The delegation marched from Kitchlew Chowk to the deputy commissioner’s office and handed over a memorandum to additional deputy commissioner (general) Bhupinder Singh.
The memorandum is addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi through deputy commissioner Ravi Bhagat.
The memorandum said, “These days, the peaceful atmosphere of Punjab is being vitiated by the release of Harinder Sikka’s film ‘Nanak Shah Fakir’. The Punjab government has already banned its screening because Guru Nanak and his family have been shown in a living form in this film.”
The memorandum further stated, “The Sikh religion prohibits idol worship and no human characterization of guru and their family on screen. This is against Sikh tenets.”
The memo requested the PM to put ‘blanket ban’ on the screening of this film in the entire country.
The Punjab government on Wednesday suspended the screening of “Nanak Shah Fakir”, a film on the life of Guru Nanak, for two months, citing “widespread reports of unrest and resentment against the movie, leading to public protests and demonstrations against it by the Sikh masses”.
Dal Khalsa also slammed the Modi government for allowing the movie to be released despite serious objections raised by the community.
Dal Khalsa spokesperson Kanwar Pal Singh said, “Since the past three weeks, we have been urging and appealing through letters, memoranda and street protests to the President, the home minister and the information and broadcasting minister to see reason and ban the movie, but the Union government has not reacted.”
