Sudheendra Kulkarni, chairman of the Observer Research Foundation Mumbai, with his face smeared with black ink, speaks to journalists in Mumbai on Monday.

Six members of a radical Hindu political party were arrested in Mumbai on Monday for blackening the face of Sudheendra Kulkarni, the host of former Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis disapproved of Shiv Sena’s protests against the launch of Kasuri’s book in Mumbai. He said Shiv Sena’s act has brought disrepute to the state.

“We cannot endorse Mr. Kasuri, but we also cannot let our state turn into a banana republic,” he said. “I think the way things have happened has brought a bad name to our state. There could have been better ways to put forth a point of view.”

Despite Shiv Sena’s protests and a paint attack on Kulkarni, the launch of Kasuri’s book, “Neither a Hawk, Nor a Dove — An Insider’s Account of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy,” was held in Mumbai.

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