Sumitra and her friends had gone for a movie on Oct 23 at Bengaluru’s Orion Mall when they were bullied by actor Arun Gowda and others for not standing up for the national anthem.
Over a month ago, a video of Kannada actor Arun Gowda bullying a group of people at a movie theatre in Bengaluru for not standing up for the national anthem had gone viral. Now, one of the victims – Sumitra S has approached the Subramanyanagar Police alleging that she was bullied and criminally intimidated despite stating that she was unable to stand up due to severe cramps in her leg. The woman, a resident of Chennai, says in her complaint that she decided to come to Bengaluru and file a complaint after she read reports of the police registering a suo motu case against her. Sumitra and her friends had gone to PVR Cinemas in Bengaluru’s Orion Mall on October 23 to watch a Tamil film Asuran. The woman and her friends were verbally abused and this incident was caught on camera. In the video, the woman and her friends are labelled terrorists and Pakistanis by members of the audience, who took it upon themselves to bully the victim and her friends for not standing up for the national anthem. “When the national anthem was played, I was about to stand up but I had a bad cramp in my leg, which had been hurting for a while. My friend, who was sitting next to me, turned to ask me what happened. She was consoling me and so we did not stand up for the national anthem,” Sumitra says. During the interval, Arun Gowda and fellow moviegoers began hounding Sumitra and her friends for not standing up for the national anthem. “Not able to spare 52 seconds for the country, but you have the audacity to sit here and watch a three-hour movie? Are you Pakistani terrorists?” a man can be heard saying in the video, as he and a group of others berated Sumitra. Sumitra states in her complaint that she informed the people she had cramps in her leg and was unable to stand up. “Despite that, they used bad language and hurled abuses at me. When I called the security guard for help, they began saying, ‘See what I’ll do to you’. The security guard did not help us at all,” Sumitra’s complaint states. When Sumitra threatened to inform the police, the mob allegedly threatened to physically harm her. “I was really scared and went away from the theatre with my friends,” the complaint adds. After the video of Arun Gowda bullying the woman went viral, the police took suo motu cognisance of the case and registered an FIR against the woman and her friends under Section 3 of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971. Now, after Sumitra filed the complaint, the police have registered a case against two unidentified persons under sections 341 (wrongful restraint), 506 (criminal intimidation), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC. In November 2016, the apex court had made it mandatory for all cinema halls to play the national anthem before the screening. The November 2016 order mandated that people would have to stand up in respect for the national anthem when it was played in cinema halls. The order said that this practice would "instil within one a sense of committed patriotism and nationalism." However, this order was overturned by a two-judge bench headed by former Chief Justice Deepak Misra on January 5, 2018. Chief Justice Dipak Misra had said that it was up to the cinema hall to decide whether or not to play the national anthem. However, if a cinema hall does choose to play the national anthem, people could stand up to show respect. “Why should you presume that not singing the national anthem in a theatre makes a person anti-national?” Justice Chandrachud, who was a part of the two-judge bench, had asked.
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