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Hindustan Times Comic Strip Showing A Sikh as Smoking Triggers Outrage

July 5, 2017 | By Sikh Siyasat Bureau

Chandigarh: A comic trip published by Hindustan Times (HT), an English vernacular, has triggered outrage from the Sikhs as the comic showed a Sikh military personnel smoking a cigarette. Smoking is strictly prohibited in Sikh religion and amounts of one of the four forbidden conducts called kurehets.

The comic was published in Delhi Edition of the newspaper on 2 July, 2017 and is still available online in e-paper edition of the newspaper.

In the Comic strip the main char­ac­ter is shown to be a Sikh with beard and mous­taches and he is shown to be a Sikh Ma­haraja Sikan­dar Singh. In one of the sub­se­quent il­lus­tra­tions, the Sikh Ma­haraja Sikan­dar Singh is shown smok­ing a cig­a­rette.

The newspaper has not yet offered any clarification or regret on this issue and many Sikh circles opine that it was a deliberate blasphemous conduct on the part of HT.

As per reports the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) has field a police complaint against the newspaper. In it’s com­plaint filed thought its’ counsel Jag­mo­han Singh, the DS­GMC has states that: “the Supreme Court of In­dia has clar­i­fied that the right to free­dom of ex­pres­sion is not an ab­solute right but comes with the re­spon­si­bil­ity of not hurt­ing the re­li­gious sen­ti­ments of re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zens…. by hurt­ing Sikh sen­ti­ments they have com­mit­ted of­fi­cers un­der Sec­tion 153 A and 295.”

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Related Topics: DSGMC, Embedded Journalism, Indian Media, Sikhs in India

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