Amazon Prime Video‘s latest Original Web Series Paatal Lok is a certified hit. It has been appreciated by critics and audiences alike. But the series has also ruffled more than its fare share of feathers. Along with the bouquets, it has garnered brickbats — and Police cases filed against it — by the scads. The latest salvo is that another case has been filed against Paatal Lok, this time by the Sikh community. Paatal Lok Web Series Police Case
Here are all the cases filed against Paatal Lok by community organisations, politicians and people at large, and oh yes, public interest litigations.
Paatal Lok released on Amazon Prime Video on Friday 15th May, and the first case filed against it happened on Monday, 18th May. Viren Sri Gurung, a member of the Lawyers Guild, served a legal notice to Paatal Lok co-producer Anushka Sharma, protesting against a casteist slur used to describe a Nepali woman in the series. A Gorkha woman was called a ‘Nepali ran*i’ in the series, and the Gorkha community was up in arms against the demeaning of Nepali women.
Next, The All Arunachal Pradesh Gorkha Youth Association also filed an online complaint with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for the same reason. It has also started an online petition against the series.
Even as the matter was still simmering, came news that BJP MLA from Loni in Uttar Pradesh Nandkishore Gurjar was miffed with Paatal Lok makers for using a picture of his in the web series without his permission, and that too, in a negative light. He is shown standing right next to the villain in the series, Balkrishna Bajpayee.
The goof-up happened because the makers took a real picture of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath inaugurating a highway in 2018, and simply superimposed their villain Bajpayee’s picture on Yogi Adityanath’s picture, without bothering to disguise the surrounding people’s faces.
The UP MLA Nand Kishor Gurjar has since filed a police case against Paatal Lok. The BJP leader has also asked for the series to be banned and action taken against it for creating communal disharmony and for its anti-national stance. He has alleged that Paatal Lok showed Gurjars as dacoits and in a negative light, and it also tried to create differences between castes such as the Jats of Punjab, Brahmins and Tyagis.
After the Gorkhas and the Gurjars, it is now the turn of the Sikhs to take umbrage against the series. Jaspreet Singh Matta, the co-convenor of the Sikh Cell of BJP”s Delhi unit, has filed an independent complaint with the NHRC against Paatal Lok. The Sikh community is upset as the series has shown Sikhs as rapists. A scene in Paatal Lok shows a Sikh man raping a woman, while two ”Amritdhari” Sikhs, amongst several other Sikhs, watch mutely. In Sikhism, Amritdhari Sikhs are baptised and must follow the Rahit Maryada, which is the Sikh code of conduct to protect women at all costs.
Besides registering his discontent with the NHRC, Matta has filed a police complaint in Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar police station under sections 153, 295A and 298 of the Indian Penal Code and applicable sections of the IT Act.
Another case against the aforementioned sequences in Paatal Lok has been filed by G.S. Dhillion, a practicing advocate of the Punjab & Haryana High Court. He has filed a complaint with the S.A.S Nagar Police Station in Punjab, stating thus, “Episode No.3 of the above named internet series is sub-named as ‘A History Of Violence’ is shown to be set in a village of Punjab. The accused have purposely and maliciously, with an intent of creating communal disharmony and caste based clashes have shown two castes in bad light besides seriously defaming members of the Sikh community and hurting the religious feelings of Sikhs at large. The accused have used a caste based slur namely ‘ MANJAAR’ again and again for a particular caste and shown hate between the other caste namely ‘Jatt Sikh’.”
The advocate has also riled against the rape sequence shown to be perpetuated by turbaned Sikhs in the episode.
Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee president Manjinder Singh Sirsa too has registered his dislike for the show’s objectionable scenes.
Except for the Gorkha community, all other petitions and complaints have demanded a complete ban on the series, asking that it be pulled down for being anti-national and creating communal discord.
Meanwhile, the hashtag #BoycottPaatalLok was trending for several days on Twitter, with trolls labelling its content as Hinduphobic.
Stay tuned to Binged.com for fresh updates on Paatal Lok.
Sikh Community Files Police Case on Paatal Lok Web Series |Paatal Lok Web Series | Paatal Lok Web Series Amazon Prime Video
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