Hyderabad: Youth pulls down Israeli flag hoisted for Miss World pageant, live streams event; booked

Hyderabad: Police have booked a youth for reportedly pulling down the Israeli flag from the Tank Bund.

The flag was hoisted by the Telangana government as part of the Miss World pageant in the city on May 12, 2025.

The accused, Zakir, removed the flag and posted a reel on Instagram.

After the youth was booked, government authorities reinstalled the flag on the Tank Bund.

However, on May 16, once again, the same youth was spotted removing the Israeli flag. The incident was live-streamed on Instagram. This has sparked a major controversy.

A witness wrote on X: “ Respected sir CVAnandIPS and Hyderabad police. Given the 72nd Miss World-2025 competition, which is to be held in Hyderabad, many countries and their bureaucrats will be joining this event. The government has installed all the country flags at Tankbund, since a couple of days some Instragram handles are posting to remove the `ISRAEL 🇮🇱 FLAG’ because of the war between Israel 🇮🇱 and Palestine 🇵🇸,”

“Today a video has been circulating on social media that ISRAEL Country flag 🇮🇱 is been removed. Because of the removal of flag it may lead to create a disturbence between two friendly countries (India 🇮🇳 and israel 🇮🇱 ) , hence I request good officer to look into this matter seriously and file a case against the person involved in it. As the flag was installed by the government, the PDPP Act will also be applicable.”