I Am Done and Goodbye, Says Comedian Munawar Faruqui After Bengaluru Show Cancelled
Bengaluru: Comedian Munawar Faruqui announced today that he may not do any more stand-up comedy shows, citing the cancellation of at least 12 of his shows in the last two months due to threats from right-wing groups.
The most recent event to be cancelled was to be held today in Bengaluru, where authorities requested that the organisers cancel it due to potential law and order issues.
Faruqui was arrested for "insulting Hindu gods and goddesses" during one of his comedy shows earlier this year and spent a month in jail for that. He took to Instagram today, after his Bengaluru event was cancelled and wrote that, "Artist haar gaya, Nafrat jeet gayi (hate has won and artist has lost). I've done, goodbye. Injustice."
He further shared on his social media account that "Aaj Bangalore show cancel ho gaya. We sold 600+ tickets. Month back my team called late Puneeth Rajkumar sir organisation for charity which we will be going to generate from this show in Bangalore. We agreed to not sell the show on the name of charity as suggested by the noble organization.”
“Putting me in jail for the joke I never did to cancelling my shows, which has nothing problematic in it. This is unfair. This show has gained so much love from people in India irrespective of their religion. This is unfair. We do have censor certificate of the show and it's clearly nothing problematic in the show. We called off 12 shows in the last two months because of threats to venue and audience,” he added.
The comedian ended by saying that he is done and his time has come now. He thanked everyone for being a wonderful audience and bid goodbye.