UP Cops Reach ‘Tandav’ Director’s House, Serve Notice

Amid the ongoing controversy over the web series ‘Tandav’, a team of police personnel from the Uttar Pradesh Police on Thursday reached director Ali Abbas Zafar’s residence here to serve him notice over allegedly hurting religious sentiments.

On reaching, however, they found his house locked and pasted the notice there.

“We have served notice asking him to appear before the Investigation Officer on January 27 in Lucknow. His house was locked and nobody was there, so we pasted the notice there,” said Anil Kumar Singh, an officer from the Hazratganj Police Station, UP.

This comes after an FIR was registered at Lucknow’s Hazratganj Kotwali against Amazon Prime’s India head of original content Aparna Purohit, director of web series ‘Tandav’ Ali Abbas Zafar, its producer Himanshu Krishna Mehra, writer Gaurav Solanki and others for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.

Meanwhile, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted three weeks transit anticipatory bail to Ali Abbas Zafar and three others in an FIR registered in Uttar Pradesh to enable him to approach the appropriate court for regular pre-arrest bail, said Aniket Ujjwal Nikam, lawyer of the accused on Wednesday.

The lawyer, on behalf of the accused, said in a video statement that the web series has “not hurt the religious sentiments nor there was any intention to do so.”

An FIR has also been filed by Mumbai Police PRO, DCP S Chaitanya under sections 153 (A), 295 (A) and 505 (2) IPC at Mumbai’s Ghatkopar Police station.

Zafar on Tuesday revealed that the cast and crew of the show have decided to implement changes in the Amazon Prime Video-based series in order to address the backlash against its content that has hurt the religious sentiments of many viewers.

Zafar shared an official statement from the cast and crew of the series on Twitter and reiterated that the team had no intentions to hurt or offend the sentiments of any caste, race, community or religion. (ANI)