Dewan Sayed Zainual Abedin Ali Khan of the dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti on Thursday compared flimmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali to controversial authors such as Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen and Tarek Fatah for allegedly stirring religious sentiments.

This is the first time the dargah dewan has spoken on a controversial matter. Earlier, he had limited himself to condemning terrorism and Pakistan for working against Islam and Sufism. In a statement, the dewan stated that the conduct of Bhansali has inflamed the feelings of religion and, therefore, the protest against movie ‘Padmavati’ was valid. The Muslim community should support the agitation against such movies, he said, reports The Times of India.

‘The character of Bhansali is similar to that of writer Rushdie, Nasreen and Fatah because Bhansali has distorted history to make ‘Padmavati’. This is hurting the feelings of Rajput community. This is similar to the act of Rushdie and others as they have also distorted history in the name of their right to expression. Such writers tried to hurt the feelings of Muslims,’ he said.

Dewan said that the alleged scene between Allauddin Khilji and Padmavati hurt the feelings of Rajput community+ . ‘Therefore, the protest against movie ‘Padmavati’ is valid,’ the dewan said.

He asked Muslims of the country to support this agitation by the Rajput community, adding that the movie was also hampering peace management.

‘If some scene in a film is hurting the feelings of any community then such scenes should be re-examined so that the feeling of anyone is not hurt,’ he said.

Movies should not aim to hurt the sentiments of any community. The dewan demanded the government of India to ban the exhibition of such films.