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Elderly Woman Among Three Harassed In Chennai For Not Standing Up While The Anthem Played

The police did not arrest the assaulters.
Audience members stand for the Indian national anthem before a movie starts at a cinema in New Delhi.
CHANDAN KHANNA via Getty Images
Audience members stand for the Indian national anthem before a movie starts at a cinema in New Delhi.

In Chennai, three people were harassed for not showing enough 'patriotism'. In this case, it meant standing up for the National Anthem before the screening of a movie.

According to reports, a woman and her elderly mother were verbally abused while a man was roughed up for not showing for not standing up for the National Anthem at Palazzo Cinemas in Vadapalani, one of the venues of the Chennai International Film Festival.

Chennai police arrested Shreela, her 60-year-old mother Subhashri and Bijon, a graduate and booked them under Section 3 of The Prevention of Insults to National Honour.

They were later released on bail.

When they did not stand up during the anthem before the screening of Bulgarian film Glory, someone sitting behind questioned them. When they started defending themselves, the man was reportedly manhandled.

"Those who tried to stop the mob were roughed up too. One of the persons who led the mob went out to call the police, while others said they won't allow the screening till police come and take them into custody," an eyewitness told Indian Express.

However, the strange part is when the police came and arrested the three, the organisers reportedly demanded that the assaulters be arrested too. But the police allegedly refused to listen.

Shreela, a social worker, was part of a group booked on a similar complaint in December.

Last month, a group of 20 people roughed up one man and two women at the Kasi theatre in Chennai because they did not stand up for the National Anthem.

"My mother and I did not stand up for the National Anthem as my mother is old and I did not because of my principles. Some people began assaulting the other student, who was sitting next to us, they abused him and tried to drag him out of the hal," Shreela told The Newsminute.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.