The Hyderabad Cyber Crime police have registered a case against noted music composer Devi Sri Prasad, popularly known as DSP, in the wake of a complaint alleging that his song hurt “religious sentiments” of Hindus. The complaint was filed by actor Karate Kalyani, who is also the woman president of the Rashtriya Hindu Joint Action Committee, and Lalith Kumar, president of Hindu Janashakti, in connection with a song released by Devi Sri Prasad a month ago. The song titled 'O Pari' was released in different languages and has garnered over 20 million views on YouTube. The case was registered on November 2, Wednesday.
Watch the song here:
In her complaint, Karate Kalyani had stated that the song in question featured scantily-dressed women uttering the words ‘rama rama hare bolo krishna krishna hare’, which hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus. “This is not the first time DSP is insulting Hindu gods. In the past, he has sung spiritual songs to the tune of item songs,” she wrote. ‘Item song’ is a commonly used term to describe a catchy, upbeat, often sexually provocative dance sequence for a song in a movie. The allegation is in reference to a statement made by DSP at a press meet, where he had said that for him, as a composer, all music was the same, whether they be devotional or item songs. He had gone on to sing a song intermixing the tunes of devotional and item songs.
She further alleged that the lyricist of ‘O Pari’, Raqueeb Alam, who is a Muslim, had written the lyrics with the intention of hurting the sentiments of Hindus. “As Hindus, we strongly believe that the lyricist does not value Hindu gods, which is the reason he wrote such lyrics to demean the Hindus. Despite being Hindu, Devi Sri Prasad has also become a partner in crime,” she claimed. The complaint has also requested for action to be taken against the music production company T-series, as well as the cast and crew involved in the song on suitable sections.
As per information shared by the complainant through the FIR, cases have been registered under sections 153(A) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc) and 295 (A) (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
One of the top music composers in the Telugu film industry, Devi Sri Prasad is known for his music in films such as Allu Arjun starrers Pushpa: The Rise and Aarya 2, Jr NTR’s Nannaku Prematho, Ram Charan’s Rangasthalam and Prabhas’s Mirchi among others.