Mumbai Mirror prints cartoon calling PM Modi ‘butcher’, then retracts and apologises

A cartoon published in the Mumbai Mirror’s May 2 edition has been removed with an apology from the paper’s editor.

The cartoon was drawn by artist Ashish Asthana and published under journalist Aakar Patel’s daily column “Poll Dance”. It described PM Modi as “Narendra M, Butcher, Godhra” and Congress president Rahul Gandhi as “Rahul G, Trainee, Delhi”.

The apology read: “In the column, Poll Dance, that takes a satirical look at elections, there was a cartoon that referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a derogatory fashion. This was uncalled for, in poor taste, and a clear oversight on our part editorially to let it go through. Our apologies for the same. This illustration has been taken off from both our online editions and the e-paper.”

The apology was signed off by “Editor”. Meenal Baghel is currently the editor of Mumbai Mirror.

The cartoon was removed from the online and e-paper editions of the newspaper. The e-paper now contains a blank space instead of the cartoon.