Fiery8217; protest against eveninger

MUMBAI, January 2: Angry activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Agnishiksha Manch today demonstrated against eveninger Mumbai Sandhya for publishi...

MUMBAI, January 2: Angry activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Agnishiksha Manch today demonstrated against eveninger Mumbai Sandhya for publishing vulgar articles and pictures displaying quot;the Indian womanquot; in a poor light.

Since the last month, the newspaper has been running a series of articles with explicit details about Kamasutra, the art of love-making, with suggestive pictures. This, the activists say, is tantamount to insulting the quot;narijatquot; women folk, and will not be tolerated.

Shouting vituperative slogans against proprietor-editor Uday Acharya, they demonstrated outside his office premises in Andheri east. They squatted on the floor, making protestations, and burnt copies of the newspaper while posing before clicking cameras.

Donning the role of quot;moral guardiansquot;, the manch has in the past quot;successfullyquot; launched anti-vulgarity salvos against personalities such as Madhu Sapre, Pooja Bhatt, Mamta Kulkarni and Amitabh Bachchan. Acharya, who was raided by I-T authorities in November, was least worried. He said he was catering to popular demand from readers. quot;There are many newspapers publishing similar articles and pictures. They are needlessly making an issue of it,quot; Acharya said, showing letters from readers making queries.

quot;They are making references to men8217;s private parts. This is an overdose of sex in the paper. Is this how they misuse freedom of expression to influence minds of the youth ?quot;8217; asked Alka Pandey, warning that if the paper didn8217;t comply, they would step up the agitation.

Another activist Luiza Chauhan, who reads only quot;Englishquot; newspapers, was more explicit. quot;They are telling us about how long a man8217;s instrument should be. What will be the impact of children who read such things? We will beat them up if they continue with the articles,quot; threatened Luiza.

The activists refused to go without meeting Acharya. They refused to talk to the assistant editor Madhuraj Madhu, saying, quot;Acharya is the man who calls the shots here.quot; The demonstrators did more than just gather curious onlookers. Disrupted traffic led to cacophony, and there was a small group of men on the opposite road who were mischievously supplementing their own tongue-in-cheek slogans: Hamari mange puri karo. Aur chaphvao. Fulfil our demands. Publish more of them.