Plea against Mirzapur, Amazon, SC seeks reply

AN FIR WAS FILED AGAINST THE PRODUCERS OF ‘MIRZAPUR’ FOR HURTING “RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS” AND SPOILING THE IMAGE OF UP

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a notice and sought responses from makers and producers of web series ‘Mirzapur’ and streaming platform Amazon Prime Video on a plea complaining over the portrayal of Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur district in bad light.

The top court’s notice comes two days after an FIR was registered against the producers of ‘Mirzapur’ for hurting “religious sentiments” and spoiling the image of the town in UP.

The FIR named producers Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar and Bhaumik Gondaliya under IPC sections 295 A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the IPC along with sections of the Information Technology (IT) Act.

The FIR was filed on complaint by one Arvind Chaturvedi at Mirzapur Kotwali (Dehat) police station.

The row over ‘Mirzapur’ comes after similar allegations against another Amazon Prime video series ‘Tandav’ starring Saif Ali Khan. Several complaints, including two in Uttar Pradesh’s Luckow and one Greater Noida, and another one in Mumbai have been filed against the the makers and artists of the show.

In Mumbai, police have booked ‘Tandav’ director Ali Abbas Zafar, producer Himanshu Mehra, writer Gaurav Solanki, and Aparna Purohit, head of India Original Contents at Amazon, and also the actors featuring in the web series. The Lucknow Police have also registered an offence against the producer and director of the series and a team of Lucknow Police reached Mumbai on Wednesday to investigate the case.

Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh home minister Narottam Mishra expressed zero tolerance for such series that hurt religious sentiments. “We will not tolerate such things at all. Court has provided them relief and so they are safe. Otherwise, they would have been behind bars,” he said in Bhopal.

The complainants have alleged that ‘Tandav’ inappropriately depicts the UP Police personnel, hurts religious sentiments and adversely portrays the character playing the prime minister in the political drama.