Mumbai: Navjot Singh Sidhu has been asked to leave the Kapil Shama show following his comments on the Pulwama terror attack, which triggered a nation wide outrage.
In his reaction on Friday in wake of the attack that claimed the lives of 42 jawans, Sidhu, a minister in the Congress-led Punjab Government, appeared to give a clean chit to Pakistan, saying a nation cannot be held responsible for the dastardly acts of the terrorists.
“Nations cannot be held responsible for the dastardly acts of terrorists. The terrorists do not have deen, mazhab (sect and religion). There are good, the bad and the ugly. Every institution has them. Every nation has them. The ugly need to be punished. But individuals cannot be blamed for the dastardly act,” he had said.
Media reports suggested that Sony Entertainment Television had asked the producers of the show for an immediate replacement as it was being unnecessarily dragged into the controversy.
Sidhu’s statement did not go down well with netizens and viewers of the show. Soon, #BoycottSidhu started trending on Twitter, with people demanding that he be taken off the show. They also demanded a boycott of the show and of Sony TV unless he was removed.
“His remarks have not been taken kindly by most. Also, the channel and the show was getting dragged into the unwanted controversy. This is when the team amicably decided that Navjot make a distance from the show. The team has already shot a couple of episodes with Archana,” a source was quoted by Indian Express as having said.
His comments were met with harsh criticism and since then, social media has been flooded with posts demanding Navjot Singh Sidhu’s exit from The Kapil Sharma Show.
This is not the first time that Sony TV has taken a stand over a controversy. After Anu Malik was named in the MeToo campaign, he was sacked overnight as a judge from Indian Idol 10.
