The ongoing high-profile Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (KGAF) has been hit by a controversial curveball. Festival organisers have cancelled an event/discussion titled ‘Incarcerated: Tales from Behind Bars.’ This discussion was scheduled for today (Thursday) evening and featured journalist and writer Neeta Kolhatkar, author of the book The Feared: Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners, and activist Anand Teltumde.

The event has been reportedly cancelled on orders of the Mumbai Police. Teltumde was implicated in the Bhima Koregaon case in 2018 and spent over 2.5 years in prison. He has a recently published book called The Cell and the Soul: Prison Memoir (2025). Teltumde and Kolhatkar were supposed to be speaking to editor and writer Naresh Fernandes, who was the event moderator.