MUMBAI : My Name is Khan, Police have arrested more than 1,000 right-wing Hindu activists in the Indian city of Mumbai as part of increased security to stop violence over the release of new movie ‘My Name Is Khan’.

“Right now, 1,000 plus people have been arrested. Most of them (the arrests) are preventive,” senior officer Devan Bharti told AFP on Wednesday.

The arrests come amid a simmering row between top actor-producer Shah Rukh Khan, who stars in the film “My Name Is Khan”, and a local hardline Hindu nationalist party, the Shiv Sena.

Shiv Sena leaders have called on Khan to apologise after comments he made regretting the absence of any Pakistan players in the Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket tournament starting next month.

The party champions the rights of local people from the western Indian state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is capital, and the local Marathi language.

It is also vocally anti-Muslim and sees itself as a defender of traditional Hindu moral values, often backing up its stance with violence.

Khan, who part-owns IPL outfit the Kolkata Knight Riders, has refused to apologise and defended questions about his patriotism.

Shiv Sena activists on Tuesday broke windows at one cinema in Mumbai during protests and have vowed to disrupt the film’s release on Friday.

Police on Tuesday announced that cinema-goers would be frisked and officers deployed to theatres showing the movie.

MUMBAI : My Name Is Khan` Not Preachy About Religion, Politics, Security will be increased at cinemas for the Indian release of the latest Shah Rukh Khan film ‘My Name Is Khan’ after a row between the actor-producer and a hardline Hindu nationalist party, police said on Tuesday.

Mumbai police’s joint commissioner for law and order, Himanshu Roy, said officers could be deployed to the 63 theatres in the city showing the film, while checks will be made on cinema-goers.

“We will provide the security as long as it is required,” he told a news conference in the city after meeting multiplex owners concerned about possible attacks by activists from the Shiv Sena organisation.

“There will be a high level of frisking and personal checking before they are allowed to enter into theatres,” he added, but refused to go into exact details about the security arrangements.

“My Name Is Khan” — about a man with Asperger’s Syndrome living in San Francisco who falls in love with a Hindu woman against the backdrop of the fallout from the September 11, 2001 attacks, hits screens on Friday.

The release has been overshadowed by the Shiv Sena’s objections to Khan’s comments regretting the absence of any Pakistan players in the forthcoming Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket tournament, which begins next month.

Khan’s parents were born in what is now Pakistan and he part-owns IPL outfit the Kolkata Knight Riders.

The Shiv Sena has been a self-styled promoter of “Maharashtrian pride” for nearly four decades, championing the rights of people from the western Indian state over “outsiders” and the local language Ma