After Thackeray warning, Sainiks beat up Big Boss guards

Mumbai: Armed with their party's self-proclaimed badge of moral police keepers, a group of 30 Shiv Sainiks descended on the Bigg Boss bungalow in Lonavala today and beat up security guards stationed there.

Party chief Bal Thackeray had made his intentions perfectly clear in a statement issued in Mumbai. "Come what may, we will not allow the show. Don't issue law and order (disruption) threats to us. Shiv Sena will disrupt the TV show."

The party wants the two Pakistanis among the 14 participants on the show to be expelled immediately. The fourth season of the show, based on the international Big Brother, is hosted by Salman Khan. Guests from across the border are Begum Nawazish Ali, a transvestite talk show host from Karachi, and actor Veena Malik, who is Pakistani cricketer Mohammad Asif's ex-girlfriend.

"To bring people from Pakistan just to titillate audiences is terrible. Till our relations with Pakistan improve, these people should not be brought here to entertain us,'' says Uddhav Thackeray, Executive President of the Sena.

The government says it will not allow the Shiv Sena to wreck the show or harm participants or those associated with it.  

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"Police will take adequate action against whosoever has done anything there," said Chief Minister, Ashok Chavan.

This protest comes within days of Mumbai University dropping Rohinton Mistry's novel, Such A Long Journey, from its curriculum - a direct result of Shiv Sena pressure. The campaign was led by Bal Thackeray's grandson, Aditya, a History student, he felt the book made objectionable references to the Sena.

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Leading the protest was 19-year-old Aditya Thackeray, grandson of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray and a history student.

"The Vice-Chancellor is succumbing to pressure of the fascist forces. So they will command and we will obey? Is this the standard of academic norms?'' asks Dr J V Naik, who retired as Head of Department of History, Mumbai University.

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Cultural censorship has always been a part of the Shiv Sena's identity - a strategy it's now using more frequently - as it fights with estranged cousin Raj Thackeray's party for political space. The aggression against Bigg Boss is perceived by many Mumbaikars as an attempt to prove that the Shiv Sena is still a practitioner of power. "Why should they bother to protest? Indians will vote out the Pakistani participants anyway," said one Bigg Boss viewer.

Superstar Rajinikanth visited Bal Thackeray at his home today. Icons and filmstars regularly pay their respects to the Sena, often modifying their films to meet the diktats of the party. The Sena, therefore, has little reason to drop its own Big Brother act.