The Kalinga Sena, a fringe outfit in Odisha, has threatened to throw ink on Shah Rukh Khan’s face for his film Asoka which was released 17 years back. The outfit has threatened to show him black flag if he visits the state during the Men’s Hockey World Cup slated to kickstart next week.
Shah Rukh Khan faces wrath as the organisation claims that the actor insulted Odisha and its people by distorting history in his film Asoka that was released almost 20 yeas ago. The Kalinga Sena is angered as they felt that the movie insulted Odisha culture by depicting the Kalinga war wrongly. They had on November 1, filed a police complaint against SRK. It also held a rally and burnt his effigy on November 11.
The Kalinga (Odisha’s historical name) war refers to the battle between Emperor Asoka and the Kalinga king which was won by the former.
The movie had reportedly faced problems in the state even during the time of its release 17 years ago when it couldn’t screen for more than a week due to the opposition.
Kalinga Sena’s general secretary Nihar Pani said that Shah Rukh Khan will be greeted by his group workers throughout his journey from the airport to the Kalinga Stadium.
“We have all our preparation done to throw black ink on Shah Rukh Khan’s face. On the entire journey from the airport to the stadium, black flags will be shown to him and my workers will be present on that entire road,” Pani was quoted as saying by Aaj Tak.
Hemant Rath, the chief of the outfit, demanded an apology from Shah Rukh for allegedly hurting the sentiments of the Odisha people in the film.
Shah Rukh was invited for the opening ceremony of the Hockey World Cup by Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. The ceremony is set to take place in the Kalinga Stadium and the commissionerate police today said that adequate security measures will be taken for the visit of Shah Rukh Khan to Odisha after the Kalinga Sena threatened to throw ink on his face.
The Men’s Hockey World Cup will take place in Bhubaneswar from November 28 to December 16.
Earlier too, we reported how defence analyst Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, has been in judicial custody since October 24 for his tweet in 2017, wherein he had allegedly made a derogatory comment on the Konark Sun temple hurting the religious sentiments’ of the people of Odisha.
He had posted a satirical video on social networking website, Twitter, where he mocked the architecture of the Konark Temple. He had, in the same thread, also clarified that his video was in jest.
Though Abhijit’s remarks stoke protests and controversies, it was opined by many that a person to be jailed for a mere sarcastic tweet was a ‘mockery of law’. Condemning the act few also blamed it on Odisha CM’s vendetta politics.
