Birmingham city councillors Kim Kirpaljit Kaur, center, and Gurdial Singh Atwal, right, being interviewed outside the Birmingham Repertory Theater on Dec. 20. A play, ‘Behzti’ (Dishonor), that triggered a mini-riot because of its references to rape in a gurdwara, has been canceled, the theater said. (Photo: AFP)

Three men, who were among hundreds of Sikhs who stormed a theater in Birmingham, England, where a controversial play was being stated, were arrested.

Some 500 protesters stormed the Birmingham Repertory Theater where a play by upcoming writer Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti was being staged. The play titled ‘Behzti’ revolves around two teenaged girls in a dysfunctional British Asian family and tackles family feuds, prostitution, racial tension and drug abuse. The play also reportedly touches on sexual abuse and murder in a gurdwara.

The content of the play has offended a section of the Sikh community in Britain. Despite the controversy surrounding the play, the 35-year-old playwright declined to comment and went into hiding in the face of threats. “She (Bhatti) has been threatened with murder, and told by the police to go into hiding. She is personally paying a high price,” Shakila Taranum Mann, a filmmaker, told the media. “She feels this is an attempt to censor her. It is mob rule.”

Bhatti was born into a Sikh family in Watford as the third of three children, and studied modern languages at Bristol University. After spells as a journalist and actress and working in a refuge, she is now concentrating on writing for stage, television and radio.

She is one of only a handful of Asian women writers to have written for TV soaps –– she has scripts for popular TV series ‘EastEnders’ and ‘Crossroads’ to her name - and enjoys a national profile for her theater work.

In a recent interview about the depiction of Asians in soaps, Bhatti said: “We live in a really imperfect society, a society where there is heaps of racism –– covert racism and blatant racism. I think it is unreal to look to television and soaps and expect them suddenly to be perfect.”

Sikhs number 336,179 or 0.6 percent of the total population of Britain, but figure with Hindus and Jews as communities that have the highest percentage of home ownership in the country. Sikhs constitute 11 percent of Britain’s non-Christian population.

As the controversy enraged arts critics and leaders, another Birmingham-based theater company has offered to stage the play to uphold the freedom of expression. Community leaders welcomed the decision to drop the play as a victory for commonsense, while condemning acts or threats of violence.