Sonu Nigam gets life threat, Mumbai Police acts to increase security

An advisory says that the singer can be attacked by terrorists at a public place or during some film promotion.

The Mumbai Police has initiated move to increase the security cover of noted Bollywood singer Sonu Nigam in the wake of a fresh security threat. According to reports, the Maharashtra State Intelligence Department has issued an advisory to the Mumbai Police citing security threat to Sonu Nigam and two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders.

The advisory says that the singer can be attacked by terrorists at a public place or during some film promotion. Reports said that the death threat for Sonu Nigam and BJP leaders Ram Kadam and Ashish Shelar were by a terror group operating from Pakistan.

This comes almost a year after the popular singer sparked a controversy by tweeting about Azan coming from the loudspeaker of a mosque near his home. He had called it “forced religiousness”.

On April 16, 2016 in a series of tweets, Sonu Nigam had lashed out at "forced religiousness" in India after being woken up by the azaan (Islamic call to prayer) from a nearby mosque.

He had tweeted: "God bless everyone. I'm not a Muslim and I have to be woken up by the Azaan in the morning. When will this forced religiousness end in India.

"And by the way Mohammed did not have electricity when he made Islam. Why do I have to have this cacophony after Edison? I don't believe in any temple or Gurudwara using electricity to wake up people who don't follow the religion. Why then? Honest? True?. Gundagardi hai bus."

Sonu had even shaved off his head in defiance of a 'fatwa' issued by Syed Sha Atef Ali Al Quaderi of the West Bengal Minority Council, who offered to pay Rs 10 lakh as a reward to have the singer go bald and garland him with old shoes.

Talking about the issue later, he said that reactions from Bollywood on his comment that time were divided.

"I am not a religious person, but I believe in God. I see God in everybody. I believe in all the religions. Even some of my close friends stood against me during that time. But not all of them were against me. Today, a lot of people praise the step that I took during that time," he said.