JOIN USShiv Sena party workers on Tuesday barged into Mumbai Press Club and disrupted a press conference that was being held by the Pakistan-based Mekaal Hasan band.
Twenty of these party workers, including three women, have been taken into custody and charged with trespassing, threatening and attempting to create a disturbance. The Sufiyana band’s lead guitarist Hasan was delineating the details of the Indo-Pak musical fusion venture, when around 50 Shiv Sena party workers barged into the club, waved banners and shouted anti-Pakistan slogans. The party cadres demanded that the band be sent away.
Band members Muhammad Ahsan Papu (flautist), Gino Banks (percussionist); Sheldon D’Silva (bassist) and Sharmistha Chatterjee (vocalist) were also present at the press club.
Eyewitnesses said that the Shiv Sena party workers created a din, threw furniture and vandalised posters of the joint venture, but did not physically attack the press fraternity or the musicians. The Mumbai Press Club has demanded the arrest of all the vandalising trespassers. “This act of cowardice by the Shiv Sena will not be tolerated,” it said in a statement.