The Goa Police have regis tered an FIR against the founders of two organisations for allegedly hurting the religious sentiments of the Catho lic community through their proposed event titled ‘Tales of Kamasutra and Christmas Celebration’. The FIR was filed following a complaint by Cyril A Fernandes, President of the Catholic Association of Goa. According to the police, Fernandes alleged that the organisers — identi fied as the founder of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh foundation and the founder of the Osho Ludhiana Meditation Soci ety — acted with a common intention to host the event and had circulated promotional material featuring ex plicit sexual content linked to Christ mas. The complaint stated that the event’s title and publicity material amounted to an intentional insult to the Catholic faith. Based on this complaint, the Pan jim Police registered offences under Section 299 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings) and Section 294 (sale, adver tisement, or public display of obscene content, including digital media), read with Section 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023. The inves tigation is being handled by PSI Man junath Naik of Panjim Police Station. Earlier, the Goa Police had issued a formal directive instructing the or ganisers to immediately halt all public bookings and promotional activities.
Although the organisers initially informed the police that the event had been cancelled, sources indicated that book ings were still being accepted through both online and of fline channels. “Therefore, the organisers have again been told to imme diately stop all promotional activity, cancel existing book ings, and refund payments to customers. Failure to comply will result in the registration of an FIR,” the official police statement warned. The controversy had already triggered a strong backlash from NGOs, civil society groups, and the Christian commu nity. Amid growing protests, the organisers announced on Sunday that the four-day programme had been cancelled. Speaking to O Heraldo, organiser Manjit Singh said the event was called off following repeated enquiries from the Goa Police. “I have cancelled my four-day event. Police contacted me on Saturday and Sunday to enquire about the programme. People misunderstood the event, which was about medita tion and raised objections. There were no bookings as I had only just advertised it,” Singh said. He added that the police had informed him about com plaints from members of the Christian community regard ing the use of the words ‘Kamasutra’ and ‘Christmas’ to gether in the promotional poster. “This was meant to be a festive mood of celebration, nothing to do with religious matters. But I think we over reacted by mentioning Christmas in the advertisement,” he admitted.
