As India gears up to face Pakistan in the Asia Cup T20 in Dubai on Sunday, Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) has issued a warning to hotels, restaurants, and clubs in Mumbai against screening the high-profile match. The party has threatened protests if any venue goes ahead with telecasting the game, reviving its long-standing opposition to cricketing ties with Pakistan.

The Sena’s aggressive stand comes even as its allies, the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (SP), remain silent on the issue. Alongside the warning, the party has launched a symbolic campaign urging women to send *sindoor* to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a reference to “Operation Sindoor,” India’s military response to the Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir earlier this year.

The move echoes past actions by the Shiv Sena, which in 1991 famously disrupted an India-Pakistan One-Day International by digging up the pitch at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium and pouring engine oil on it. Similar protests were carried out in Delhi in later years, underscoring the party’s consistent hardline stance against sporting engagements with Pakistan.