Four musicians of Dastaan Live held for allegedly insulting religious sentiments during Serendipity Arts Festival performance

Four musicians of the rock band Dastaan Live were arrested by Panaji police on 18 December, 2019 for insulting a religion during their performance at the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa. According to the police, the artists, now out on bail, were booked under IPC section 295 (hurting religious sentiments) following a complaint filed by Venkata Krishna Kunduru, an Indian Express report  stated. The Supreme Court advocate alleged that the Dastaan Live group was “misusing the platform of Serendipity Arts Festival 2019” by performing songs that insulted a religion. [caption id=“attachment_7801741” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] The artists of Dastaan Live were held in Goa following their performance at the Serendipity Arts Festival. Image via Twitter[/caption] A Times of India report noted the complainant stating that the group comprising artists Sumant Balakrishnan, Anirban Ghosh, Shiv Pathak and Nirmala Ravindera, chanted ‘Om’ along with abusive language and “also displayed walks of life with the deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings” of the people of the religion. The Serendipity Arts Festival is being held in Goa from 15 December to 22 December. The Indian Express report quoted curator Sneha Khanwalkar as saying of the incident, “I never asked the artists to set their ‘set-list’ in stone. They were free to choose their songs.” “The Serendipity Arts Festival has nothing to do with what they chose to perform. Personally speaking, the artists are free to express themselves, it’s up to the listeners to make sense of it,” she said.