A COMMENTARY on its website titled “Why a 3-1 Blackhawks Loss Isn't So Bad” dated January 25, detailing ice hockey team Nashville Predators beating Chicago Blackhawks 3-1in Chicago on Tuesday night, said that Predators were “swallowing up space like some weird Hindu god”.

Distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement from the US said that about one billion Hindus worldwide worshipped their deities almost on a daily basis and labeling them as “weird” was akin to hurting their feelings. Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, asked for immediate removal of inappropriate words from the NBC Chicago website and publication of an apology about it. Last year also, Hindus were perturbed to see the portrayal of Lord Ganesh as a sex act on NBC’s Saturday Night Live demonstrated by actors Jim Carrey and Kenan Thomson, mocking elephant-headed Lord Ganesh and his trunk in the process, Zed  pointed out.

Zed argued that Hindu deities were meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be irrelevantly branded as “weird” while commenting on an ice hockey game. Hinduism was the oldest and third largest religion of the world with a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken lightly. Symbols of any faith, larger or smaller, should not be mishandled, Zed stated.

NBC Chicago (WMAQ-TV, channel 5) is owned by NBC (National Broadcasting Company), a division of NBCUniversal headquartered in New York City whose traces go back to 1926. Stephen B. Burke is Chief Executive Officer of NBCUniversal while Larry Wert is President of NBC 5 Chicago. NBCUniversal claims to be one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience.