Sreya Kanugula
“Mirzapur,” the Amazon web-series was troubled over allegations made about the show ‘maligning the image of Uttar Pradesh’ after another Amazon show named “Tandav” was accused on the same lines, just a few days before.
A police team from Uttar Pradesh had reached Mumbai by taking the train in order to chase a case that was filed by some journalist from the town of Mirzapur in the state of UP.
Also, on January 21, 2021, the SC gave notice to the creators of the said show along with the OTT platform of Amazon Prime with regards to a petition filed by another of the aforementioned town’s residents.
Mr. SK Kumar had filed a complaint with the Top Court that the town of Mirzapur had been depicted badly in the web series in question and had been shown as a den filled with terror and criminal activity.
An FIR was filed by a journalist-slash-writer, Mr. Arvind Chaturvedi, on the 17th of January against the web series since his hometown is located in an eastern district of UP. The charge made in the report was of “deliberate and malicious intention of outraging religious feelings.”
In the report, it was also listed that the complainant found the web series’ plot as well as the dialogues written, to be hurtful to his religious sentiments and that it had portrayed the UP district he originated from in a terrible light.
On January 20th night, one of Mirzapur’s police teams headed by an inspector had taken the train to go to Mumbai in order to investigate the charge listed in the FIR.
Another police team from UP was also in Mumbai pursuing cases that were filed on the show Tandav, which had been accused of ‘causing insult to Hindu Gods.’
Tandav is a political thriller web-series starring Saif Ali Khan along with Dimple Kapadia in the main roles and its creators had been facing some backlash to parts portrayed in the show. They are also being pressurised to drop some of those parts.
The government of UP had stated that the web series creators would be made to pay for causing harm to their religious sentiments.
Around 3 cases had been filed against Tandav’s creators and actors on the allegation of misappropriating the portrayal of Uttar Pradesh’s policemen, a few gods, and an unfavourable portrayal of the character playing the Prime Minister role in the show.
On January 20th, the government of Maharashtra had also stated that they would launch an investigation into the allegations made.
The cast and the crew of ‘Tandav’ had agreed to edit the scenes that caused the complaints after they had put out an unconditional apology.
