Telangana police on Saturday booked controversial filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma as per a court directive in connection with his proposed movie Murder based on the caste killing of Pranay Perumalla.
A case against Varma and producer Natti Karuna was registered at the Miryalaguda Town-I police station in Nalgonda district in the state.
The court issued the direction after hearing a petition filed by P Balaswamy, who is Pranay's father. Pranay was murdered in 2018 by his father-in-law Maruthi Rao, who had refused to accept his marriage with his daughter, Amrutha.
Ram Gopal Varma and the producer were booked under section 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and other sections of the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act.
Balaswamy, who had approached the court last month, sought a ban on the film. He also said that photos of Pranay and his daughter-in-law Amrutha were being used without their consent.
Pranay, a 24-year-old Dalit, was hacked to death by hired killer in public when he along with his wife and mother were coming out of a private hospital in Miryalaguda on September 14, 2018. The sensational murder was caught on CCTV camera.
Maruthi Rao, who belonged to a dominant caste, and seven others were arrested in his murder. Rao, who had struck the deal to kill Pranay for Rs one crore, allegedly took his own life in March this year in Hyderabad.
Varma announced last month that he was making a film on the story of Maruthi Rao and his daughter.
"On the occasion of Father's Day, I am launching the first look poster of a film based on the tragic story of Amrutha and her over loving father Maruthi Rao," the director had tweeted on June 21.
"This is going to be a heart wrenching story based on the Amrutha and Maruthi Rao saga of the dangers of a father loving a daughter too much," he added.
Amrutha, who still lives with Pranay's parents, had reacted strongly to Varma's plans and vowed to fight a legal battle to stop the film.
"Its foolish to assume that I am going to show someone involved in a negative light because I strongly believe that nobody is bad and only bad circumstances make people look bad or make them behave bad and that's what I intend to explore in Murder," Varma had said in one of the series of tweets on the issue.