Vandals stall screening of Kashmiri film fest

HYDERABAD: A gang of vandals barged into the Prasad Labs Preview Theatre in Banjara Hills on Saturday and stalled the screening of a Kashmiri film festival just hours before the inauguration. Apart from damaging expensive equipment, the hooligans, believed to be a part of a right-wing outfit, also beat up the staff at the theatre and took away the curator’s laptop.
The vandalism began at around 11.30am after a group of about 50 agitators forced their way into the venue demanding that the festival, titled Kashmir Before Our Eyes, be called off as many of the films, which are part of the six-day event, were allegedly “anti-national”.
“Though the organizers tried resolving the issue through dialogue, the protestors refused to relent. That’s when they took to violence,” said Aparajita Sinha of Moving Images, one of the co-hosts of the festival. Not only did the troublemakers ransack the projection room, they also brunt movie reels and assaulted the theatre staffers when they tried to intervene.
The touring festival comprises about a dozen documentaries based on a turmoil-ridden Kashmir and its impact on the people of the valley. With art as their medium, filmmakers have projected through their works the diverse ideologies of various sections of society and the conflicts that the women, Pandits and Muslim populace of Kashmir are currently faced with.
“We have taken this festival to several cities, including Mumbai, Chennai and Pondicherry, in the past but have never witnessed something like this before. It is extremely disheartening, to say the least,” said Ajay Raina, the curator. His laptop that had all the films saved on its hard disk was forcibly taken away by the group.