Pakistani websites dial the ‘wrong number’

Aamir Khan takes legal action against a ‘fabricated’ interview featuring controversial answers by him on religion.

KARACHI:

As right-wing religious groups in India continue to wield their sledgehammer on the satirical comedy-drama film PK, a new controversy comes to the fore. On the grounds of defamation, PK’s lead actor Aamir Khan has sent a legal notice to certain Pakistani websites for carrying a ‘fabricated’ interview with him on the depiction of religion in the film, reported the Economic Times.

Aamir’s legal representative Anand Desai said that the interview was wrongly attributed to the actor. The allegedly ‘fake’ interview carried controversial answers on Islam. According to Desai, the 49-year-old was shocked to see the interview being circulated across websites. “He has never given such an interview; it is clearly a fabrication by someone trying to impersonate him, done with the intent of drawing visitors to their website, and is defamatory to our client,” he affirmed.

As shown in the screen grab above, the allegedly ‘fake’ interview carried controversial answers on Islam.

Desai added that the impersonation was a serious infringement of his client’s rights, and that he will take legal recourse. “Aamir will be filing a criminal complaint with the Cybercrime Cell, Mumbai Police, after he returns to Mumbai [from the United States],” he stated.

PK has already generated both controversy and cash at the Bollywood box office. The movie, which explores the concept of God and God-men has been heavily criticised by several religious organisations. Among the violent protests that the film’s content has sparked, 20 members of the right-wing organisation Bajrang Dal targeted City Gold and Shiv theatres on Ashram Road in Ahmedabad and broke the windows of ticket counters.

Renowned guru Baba Ramdev urged Hindus to boycott the movie and “organise themselves to protect their religion and culture just like Muslim and Christian groups do,” reported music website classicalite.com. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a Hindu nationalist group and an affiliate of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, wrote to the country’s information and broadcasting ministry, demanding that such movies be banned and demanded a complete overhaul of the board of censorship that greenlit PK’s release.



Another major controversy attached to the film was that Umesh Shukla, who directed OMG: Oh My God!, a film similar to PK, alleged that he was offered INR80 million by Rajkumar Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Aamir Khan to stall the shooting of his movie.

Despite the conjecture, PK continues to enjoy a strong run at the box office and recently became the highest-grossing Indian film of all time, earning a whopping INR620 crore in worldwide collections. There are also rumours of a potential sequel, with the film’s writer Abhijat Joshi having already shown keen interest in penning it, reported Hindustan Times.

PK tells the story of an alien, who comes to Earth on a human research mission but is stranded on the planet after he misplaces his remote. He befriends a television journalist who helps him locate his remote and, in the process, questions religious dogmas and superstitions prevalent in the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2015.

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