Last week, after a Swiss couple was harassed and brutally attacked by a group of men at Fatehpur Sikri near Agra – the site of the famous Taj Mahal in India, Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM ran a campaign to draw attention to the problem of safety for tourists.

Quentin Jeremy Clerc, 24, fractured his skull and suffered nerve damage while his girlfriend Marie Droz, 24, was left with a fractured arm in the attack.

Clerc told investigators that after visiting the Taj Mahal, they visited Fatehpur Sikri, where they were followed by four young men for an hour who teased them, tried to engage them in a conversation, blocked their way and forcibly took selfies with Droz. When Clerc tried to intervene, he was hit repeatedly with a stick until he fell to the ground. Droz too was attacked brutally, while bystanders allegedly made videos of the couple on their mobile phones. 

The channel ran a 48-second jingle under the campaign #MatAaoIndia (Don’t visit India), which was a satirical spin on the government’s official tourism slogan of ‘Incredible India’.

The words of the campaign are:

Dil dekho, Taj dekho, (See the hearts, see the Taj)

Mughlon ka ye bagh dekho, India ka ye itihaas dekho, (See the gardens of the Mughals and the history of India)

Atithi ka saaman dekho, khush hote mehman dekho, (See the respect we have for guests, see the happy smiles on their faces)

Yeh pehle tha, ab…(That was then. And now…)

Goa ka samundar dekho, touriston ko tang dekho, (See the sea at Goa, and the tourists being harassed)

Mehmaan apna Russian dekho, uska molestation dekho, (See your Russian guest, and her molestation too)

Fatehpur ki shaan dekho, couples hue pareshan dekho, (See the splendour of Fatehpur, and the couples being troubled there)

Pyaar ka samman dekho, naye Bharat ki shaan dekho, (See the respect we have for love, see the splendour of new India)

Maut ka moral kaam dekho, atithi ka apmaan dekho (See the morality of death, see the way we insult guests)

India aana aapki sehat ke liye haanikarak hai, (Coming to India is injurious to health)

Atithi devo nahi #MatAaoIndia. (Guests are not gods. Do not come to India)

As soon as the station’s vice president and regional programming head Akash Banerjee tweeted the promo on Thursday night, he was trolled by ‘nationalist’ Twitter handles, accusing him of spearheading an “anti-India campaign”. Complaints were lodged with the Information and Broadcasting ministry and the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) and demands were made to sack Banerjee or be prepared for a boycott of the radio station.

Soon, the station dropped the campaign and issued an apology.

Earlier this year, the radio station had also scrapped its popular ‘Mitron’ segment, which satirised Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

While tourism minister K J Alphons has claimed that the “stories” of India being unsafe for foreign tourists are “exaggerated”, a reply to a Right To Information (RTI) application filed by a local activist claimed that 245 foreigners have died in Goa in the last 12 years.

In 2015, 365 crimes against foreigners in India were registered, of which 271 were against tourists.

There has also been a decline in the number of foreign visitors to Taj Mahal in Agra from 790,000 in 2012, to 636,000 in 2015.