New Delhi, India - Cinema halls across India dropped screenings of a Bollywood film considered offensive by some Sikh groups after two bomb attacks in theatres showing it killed one person and injured 49.
Authorities in Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh states asked cinema owners to stop screenings of the Hindi-language film "Jo Bole So Nihal," the
Press Trust of India news agency said on Monday.
"I have asked the commissioner of police to convince all cinema hall owners to withdraw it from their halls," West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee told reporters in Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, PTI said.
Arijit Dutta, the head of the Eastern India Motion Pictures Association in Kolkata, told PTI that police had approached individual cinema hall owners and were asking them not to screen the film "to avoid any tension."
Precautions follow the bombing of two cinemas Sunday evening which went off 15 minutes apart in the Karol Bagh neighbourhood of New Delhi, where the Bollywood action thriller was showing for the first time at the weekend.
Some Sikh groups say the film belittles their religion, because it's title "Jo Bole So Nihal", which means "blessed is the one," is part of a Sikh religious chant used in battle and prayer.
They are also offended by scenes in the movie showing the central character, a Sikh policeman called Nihal Singh, being chased by scantilly-clad young women.
Some characters in the film also enter Sikh religious shrines without removing their shoes or covering their heads -- a mandatory gesture for all who enter.
Security forces were on high alert after the blasts, for which no group has claimed responsibility.
The violence raised security fears in New Delhi which in 1984 witnessed riots that left 3,000 dead after then-prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.
They were angered over her decision to storm the religion's holiest shrine to evict separatists calling for an independent state.
The separtist movement was crushed in the 1980s.
The Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, the highest authority in the Sikh religion, had demanded a ban on "Jo Bole So Nihal", which was shot in India and the United States.
It said the film's content and use of the prayer as a title had hurt Sikh religious sentiment.
The film was withdrawn from all theatres in the northern Sikh-dominated state of Punjab last week following protests from the committee.
In the past, religious groups have attacked cinemas for screening films on lesbianism, which they said violated India's traditional culture.
Rahul Rawail, producer of "Jo Bole So Nihal", said the film was not aimed at belittling Sikhs.
"If anyone has any issues with the film, then there are courts to sort out such problems," he told a private television station.
Sikh groups have condemned Sunday's blasts.
They were the handiwork of elements who "wanted to malign the Sikh faith," Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee member Kuldeep Singh Bhogal told PTI from the northern city of Amritsar.
"We fully condemn the blasts."
The Sikh religion began in the 16th century centered around Punjab state when it broke away from Hinduism and Islam, the main religions of India.
There are 25 million Sikhs worldwide, most of whom live in India,
Sikhs represent less that two percent of India's population.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, India's first Sikh premier, visited the wounded in hospital on Monday, a spokesman for his office said.
Singh chaired an emergency cabinet meeting late Sunday which condemned the blasts