A producer of the hugely popular The Simpsons series has stated that the Indian character Apu will be written out following the racial stereotyping controversy.

Sky News reports that Indian-American producer Adi Shankar was told about the decision regarding Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon by two people working on the show with a third source (who works with creator Matt Groening) corroborating the news.

“I got some disheartening news back, that I’ve verified from multiple sources now: They’re going to drop the Apu character altogether,” Shankar told IndieWire. “They aren’t going to make a big deal out of it, or anything like that, but they’ll drop him altogether just to avoid the controversy,” he added.

There was a time when Apu was the only representation of South-East Asians on American television and first appeared in the episode “The Telltale Head”.

Born in Rahmatpur, West Bengal, Apu is a vegan Bengali who holds a Ph.D. in computer science. The Kwik-E-Mart owner and his wife Manjula have eight kids together and are devout followers of Lord Ganesha. Ap’s character has often been criticised for allegedly playing on negative stereotypes about the Indian community, especially due to the ridiculous “Apu accent”.