Suspected Raj Thackeray Men Ransack Theatre Screening Bhojpuri Film 'Ek Bihari Sau Pe Bhari'

Over a dozen suspected workers of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) allegedly stormed a cinema hall named Chitralaya in Maharashtra and vandalized it, protesting the screening of the Bhojpuri film Ek Bihari Sau Pe Bhari, according to district police.

Police said the group barged into the hall during the screening and began smashing property. Panic swept through the audience as people fled; the situation was brought under control quickly, police added. An offence was registered under sections 143, 147, and 149 of the Indian Penal Code — unlawful assembly and rioting — though no arrests had been made at the time of reporting.

The incident did not happen in a vacuum. It came against the backdrop of MNS chief Raj Thackeray's threat to brand Biharis as "infiltrators" and force them out of Maharashtra if Bihar's authorities took legal action against Mumbai policemen — who had picked up a teenager allegedly involved in the August 11, 2012 Azad Maidan violence from Bihar without informing their local counterparts.

The Azad Maidan riots, at a protest rally over violence in Assam, had killed two people and injured dozens; a Mumbai police crackdown followed. Thackeray's threats then escalated the standoff into a full-blown regional confrontation, with the cinema vandalism just one more front in a campaign that targeted north Indians working and living in Maharashtra.

The irony was not lost on observers: a political party claiming to defend Maharashtrian culture was trashing a Maharashtrian theatre over a film — while the audience caught in the middle was Maharashtrian too.