The Bajrang Dal and the VHP had announced yesterday that they would hold a ``black-badge protest'' against the show, organised by a little known group called the Cops Group comprising fresh graduates from the M S University. Bajrang Dal and VHP leaders had called upon the cadres to protest claiming that ``Muslim boys would dance with Hindu girls during the show.''

Carrying black flags and a saffron banner, they barged into the hall, smashed the manager's cabin and broke furniture. Even as employees escaped, Bajrang Dal local chief Neeraj Jain told the police: ``I give you 15 minutes to cancel the show.''

Activists who had sneaked in as part of the audience, kicked off the trouble by throwing stickson to the stage. None of the contestants, however, was injured. For two hours, before the show was eventually called off, volunteers terrorised the police -- ripping off the badges off some of them -- roughed up journalists and beat up photographers.

A long-haired youth, standing nearby, was mistaken for one of the organizers. A dozen activists dragged him, kicked and punched him, while one hit him repeatedly on the head with a brick. It was only when a policeman rushed to the youth's rescue that the assailants fled. The youth, bleeding from the nose and the mouth, found refuse in a nearby house.

In the meantime, the show was called off after just one round. Though the police tried to smuggle out the organisers and the contestants, some of them came in for physical and verbal abuse. Volunteers kicked and boxed them even as they were being escorted into police jeeps.

DCP (South) Mohan Jha said. ``We did not use force and did not ask the the organisers to wind up the show. They did so on their own.'' Theorganisers, on their part, said the show was very much traditional and there was nothing obscene about the dresses that the contestants were to wear.