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Hit TV show The Simpsons is said to be dropping its character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon following accusations that the long-running Indian character is a racial stereotype.

The convenience store owner, voiced by Hank Azaria, has recently caused controversy after it was suggested that he represents an inaccurate portrayal of Indian-Americans.

The Kwik-E-Mart owner was accused of being a racial stereotype after Hari Kondabolu’s documentary ‘The Problem with Apu’ aired last year, which focuses on his "stereotypical portrayal".

Although Matt Groening, the creator of the hit TV show, defended Apu’s characterisation, film producer Adi Shankar has now suggested he will soon be dropped from the show.

Speaking to IndieWire, Mr Shankar said he had spoken to several people close to the show who said that Apu will be written out.

“I’ve verified from multiple sources now: They’re going to drop the Apu character altogether,” Mr Shankar said.

“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 told IndieWire during an interview on Friday.

While Mr Shankar is not involved with The Simpsons, he recently crowdsourced a script to remedy the alleged racial stereotyping in the hope that it would be turned into an episode of the show.

The winning script, created by Dr Vishaal Buch, reportedly sees the character become a successful businessman. It will be produced on Shankar’s Bootleg Universe YouTube page.

Reports that the character may be completely written out of the programme were not welcomed by Mr Kondabolu, who said: “There are so many ways to make Apu work without getting rid of him.”

Another person wrote on Twitter: “Deleting the character completely misses the point of how we need more South Asian representations to combat the fostered stereotypes.”

In response to Mr Shankar’s claims, Fox suggested that the Kwik-E-Mart owner appeared in an episode on October 14, although he was said to only have been seen in a massive group shot in heaven.

In his documentary, Mr Kondabolu argued that Apu's representation of people of Indian and Asian descent has had a problematic impact on subsequent works of entertainment.

Specifically, the comedian said that the character was problematic because he is defined by his job.

Mr Kondabolu said last year that the character "gets to the insidiousness of racism" as it makes the prejudice so "normal”.

The Indian-American comedian also said the animation had impacted his life as he would be "made fun of at school on Monday, based on what Apu did in the last episode", according to the BBC.

“Kids in the playground would always mimic the accent and say ‘Thank you, come again!’ or ‘Hello, Mr Homer," he said.