Three Hindu youth – two brothers Krishna and Sahul Jaiswal, and Sachin Gond – were stabbed by a Muslim group as they were exiting a theatre after watching The Kashmir Files on March 18, reports Organiser. The 3 are undergoing treatment in a private hospital. The incident occurred in Fazilnagar town of Kushinagar district, Eastern UP.

It is reported that Sachin, Krishna and Sahul had raised some nationalist slogans during the screening which was objected to by some Muslim youth. As the two groups were exiting the theatre, they started arguing and the knife attack took place. Some passers by rushed them to hospital.

The Patherwa police, under whose jurisdiction the attack took place, have registered an FIR and launched an investigation. SHO Akhilesh Kumar Singh said that they are investigating the matter and police teams have been formed to identify and arrest the perpetrators.

One wonders whether the attackers were carrying knives on purpose or they are always armed in this fashion. It also raises questions of theatre security on how such armed men were allowed inside. The readiness and ease with which Islamists resort to violence is something Hindu society can ignore only at their own peril.

Critics of the movie, disturbed by the long-suppressed truth of the Kashmiri Pandit genocide finally reaching the common man, have argued that it will ‘incite communal passions’ among Hindus and cause them to ‘hate Muslims’. This is the same ‘logic’ that the secular Indian state and intelligentsia used to suppress truth of other anti-Hindu crimes like the 1971 Bengali Hindu genocide, Godhra massacre etc.

However, the main reaction to the movie The Kashmir Files among ordinary Hindus has been one of shock and disbelief that such grotesque atrocities were hidden from them for so long. Most of the anger is directed towards the ‘secular’ Hindu elites who kept this reality hidden for so long, and even inverted facts and spread lies to support the Islamist separatists.

The current incident from Kushinagar shows that, contrary to the usual fear-mongering of liberals, if any actual violence has been caused by the movie, it is being perpetrated by Islamists who cannot digest Hindus finally waking up to the atrocities fellow Hindus have endured. There have also been reports of some Muslim men disrupting screenings of the film in Kolkata and Telangana, and another video allegedly showing a Muslim woman threatening a Hindu man she was arguing with inside a theatre that “aage bhi hoga” i.e. “it (Hindu genocide) will happen in future too”.