Mumbai: An Indian far-right party has threatened to disrupt concerts by a popular Pakistan artist in Mumbai and Pune on Friday and Saturday respectively.

The Shiv Sena wants the live concerts in the two cities by Ustad Ghulam Ali Khan, 74, a Ghazal maestro much-loved in both India and Pakistan, to be cancelled because of prevailing hostile relations between the two countries.

The Shiv Sena’s general secretary of the film wing, Akshay Badrapurkar and other party activists on Wednesday handed a letter to authorities at Shanmukhanda Hall in Matunga, asking them to cancel the shows.

The Sena has also threatened to protest and stop another concert in Pune’s Ganesh Kala Krida Manch.

Given the popularity of the Ghazal maestro’s concerts, even after the threat, tickets continued to be on sale. In the past, his concerts have always been held to packed audiences, including at the Shanmukhnanda Hall, an iconic place where the Sena also holds all its major party events.

Interestingly, both the concerts are now reported to be a near-total sell out and have been under much discussion on social media in the last few days.

The present concert, Ek Ehsas, Chaudhvin Ki Raat, is being held as a tribute to the late legendary Ghazal singer, Jagjit Singh.

The Sena has always opposed concerts by Pakistani artistes due to the sour relations between the two nations, the party said. In their letter, the activists have asked whether India should host Pakistani artistes when “our soldiers are being killed at the border.”

While the Sena’s threat has angered many fans, the aggressive posture by Sena is seen as political move to upstage its Marathi rival and political party Maharashtra Navnirman Sena which came up with a diktat recently that all theatres should screen Marathi films at prime time. This, observers say, is in view of elections in Kalyan-Dombivili and Kolhapur.

However, the BJP-led government in Maharashtra may not relent. In April this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had met the singer of “Chupke Chupke” fame, and tweeted, “Felt very happy after meeting Ghulam Ali. (We) talked a lot.”

Modi also said that he regretted he was unable to attend the singer’s concert in the famous Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi — Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency and that he would like to part of the ceremony in the future.

Ghulam Ali, who is very popular in the subcontinent as well as among the South Asian diaspora in the USA, UK and Gulf countries, has had many of his ghazals used in Bollywood movies.