Actor Meezaan Jafri, directors Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru, and producer Bhushan Kumar were on August 31 booked in Jalandhar for hurting the religious sentiments of the Sikh community through their forthcoming film, Yaariyan 2. The teaser and a song of the film, which is slated to hit the screens in October, were released recently.
The case was registered at Jalandhar Commissionerate’s division number 4 police station under section 295A of the Indian Penal Code on the complaint of Harpreet Singh, a member of a local religious organisation, the Sikh Coordination Committee.
The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the top religious body of the Sikhs, has also objected to Meezaan wearking a ‘kirpan’ (a Sikh symbol of faith) in the song Saure ghar and warned of legal action if the video (uploaded on YouTube) is not removed. The video shows a clean-shaven, non-Sikh actor wearing a ‘kirpan’, which has hurt the sentiments of Sikhs, the complainant said.
The directors of the film had recently issued a clarification that Meezaan was wearing a ‘khukri’ (a curved knife) and not a ‘kirpan’ and that they had no intention of offending or disrespecting anyone’s religious beliefs. The SGPC said, it wasn’t satisfied with the director duo’s “illogical clarification”.