HYDERABAD, India, 24 June 2006 — Protesters attacked Prasad’s Imax theater and damaged its booking counter yesterday, forcing the management to stop screening of the controversial film The Da Vinci Code. A group of 50 activists of All India Christian United Front gathered in front of the theater. Holding placards and raising slogans, they demanded a ban on the film on the ground that it hurt their religious feelings. They later threw stones, damaging the booking counter of the theater.
Prasad’s Imax was the only theater that was to start showing the film yesterday, as other theaters in the city and elsewhere in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh could not take up screening of the film after a court overturned a government ban and allowed its screening.
After yesterday’s violence, the theater management decided to temporarily stop the screening of the film.
