The release of a trailer of movie Razakar-The Silent Genocide of Hyderabad has kicked up a storm and worries about communal polarisation. Reacting to the development, Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development K.T. Rama Rao took to X (formerly Twitter) to say, “We will take up the matter with Censor Board and also the Telangana police to ensure that the law and order situation of Telangana is not affected.” The movie is produced by Bharaitya Janata Party (BJP) leader Gudur Narayan Reddy.
“The Censor Board should not approve the film as any attempt to screen such a provocative film would lead to further divisions in society,” said Majlis Bachao Tehreek leader Amjedullah Khan. He demanded that the movie be banned by the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) in the State if it was serious about maintaining peace and communal harmony.
One of the frames of the trailer shows a banyan tree with hundreds of bodies hanging from it. “The hangings from the banyan tree is known to most people in Telangana. It is an important facet of the Indian Freedom Struggle. But that is from 1860. The Razakar terror is in 1948,” says historian and author Sreeramoju Haragopal, adding that it would be wrong to link India’s freedom struggle with the fight against Razakars.
