Sena disrupts Indo-Pak friendship forum event

Shiv Sainiks attempted to disrupt an event of the Mumbai-Karachi Friendship Forum chaired by Sudheendra Kulkarni, which aimed at bringing photographers of the two cities together with the larger goal of promoting goodwill between India and Pakistan.

When the function and media interaction with visiting Pakistani journalists was to begin at the Mumbai Press Club, Shiv Sainiks shouted slogans. However, they were promptly removed from the venue by the Mumbai police. Shiv Sainiks later attempted to target the car of Kulkarni.

Kulkarni, the chairman of Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Mumbai, has been on the radar of the Shiv Sena ever since he invited former Pakistani diplomat Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri in October 2015 for the launch of the latter’s book, 'Neither A Hawk Nor A Dove: An Insider's Account Of Pakistan's Foreign Policy,' and his face was also blackened with paint.

Kulkarni was a director in the PMO when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister and also a former aide of former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani.

As far as Tuesday’s event goes, it was to welcome the delegation of five Pakistani photographers who had come here – as part of ORF’s Tasveer-e-Mumbai and Tasveer-e-Karachi.

Under the project, five photographers from Karachi would come to Mumbai and five from Mumbai would go to Pakistan and their work would culminate in exhibition. The Pakistani delegation arrived here on June 20 and would leave on June 30. The Indian contingent would visit sometime in July.

“They are photographers who are peace ambassadors. In fact, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray himself is a photographer and he must understand this,” Kulkarni said.