The India tour of Canada-based Punjabi singer and rapper Shubhneet Singh, who goes by the stage name Shubh, has been cancelled amid an uproar over a post in which he shared a distorted map of the country.
Singh was scheduled to perform in Mumbai from September 23 to September 25 as part of his “Still Rollin India Tour”. He was also slated to perform in 11 other Indian cities.
BookMyShow made the announcement about the cancellation on X, formerly Twitter.
The uproar came after the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party, submitted a memorandum to the Mumbai Police, accusing Singh of being a supporter of Khalistan, an independent Sikh state sought by some groups, reported ANI.
The youth wing said that Shubh had shared a distorted map of India on Instagram. In the post shared in March, Jammu and Kashmir and northeastern states were omitted from the map of India while Punjab was covered in a shadow. He captioned the image “Pray for Punjab”.
Singh shared the post at the time when the police were looking for Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh and his associates. The Punjab government had suspended mobile internet services across the state at the time.
According to The Quint, the popular singer has no history of supporting the pro-Khalistan movement.
Meanwhile, after the backlash for the post, electronics brand boAt stated that it has decided to withdraw its sponsorship of Shubhneet Singh’s India concert.
“At boAt, while our commitment to the incredible music community runs deep, we are first and foremost a true Indian brand,” the company said in a statement. “Therefore, when we became aware of the remarks made by artist Shubh earlier this year, we chose to withdraw our sponsorship from the tour.”
The controversy comes amid rising tensions between Canada and India after Ottawa alleged that New Delhi may have been involved in the assassination of 45-year-old Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June in Surrey, outside Vancouver.
India has rejected the charges as “absurd and motivated”. It also expelled a Canadian diplomat, a tit-for-tat move after Ottawa expelled an official of the Indian foreign intelligence service.
While Canada has not yet made public any evidence of India’s involvement in Nijjar’s death, its foreign ministry said that Trudeau took up the matter with United States President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Nijjar was the head of the Khalistan Tiger Force, which is designated a terrorist outfit in India. He was among India’s most wanted persons and one of three Khalistan supporters who have died overseas in unusual circumstances in recent months.
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