Bengaluru: Bengaluru city police have registered a case against Bollywood playback singer Sonu Nigam over his comments about Pahalagam attack during a concert in the city.
The singer is charged with promoting enmity between groups, defamation and outraging religious or linguistic sentiments.
It all began with a young man in the audience repeatedly demanding the singer of performing Kannada songs during the concert at East Point College of Engineering and Technology in Bengaluru's Virgonagar on April 25-26.
Disturbed, Sonu Nigam said that he had sung in different languages including Kannada, adding ‘Whenever I come to Karnataka, I come with a lot of love and respect. You all have treated me like family’.
Making it clear that he always sing Kannada songs when requested, the singer said ‘I have been singing in Kannada before that young man was born. But I didn't like the way he shouted 'Kannada, Kannada'. It is because of such behaviour that incidents like the Pahalgam attack happen’.
His remarks about Pahalgam attack caused outrage with film personalities including Karthik Gowda, and Kannada activist SR Govindu came out questioning alongside the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, a pro-Kannada organisation, filed a complaint at the Avalahalli Police Station in Bengaluru on Friday.
The outfit claimed that Nigam’s words hurt the sentiments of Kannadiga community.
The complaint alleged that the singer’s comments ‘incited hatred among various linguistic communities in Karnataka’ with the likelihood of provoking violence, adding ‘A video of Shri Sonu Nigam's statement has gone viral, causing widespread outrage among millions of Kannadigas across the state.’
The complaint alleged that the singer equated a student’s ‘simple request to sing a Kannada song’ to the terrorist act in Pahalgam, thus insulting the Kannadiga community alongside equating ‘their cultural pride and linguistic identity with violence and intolerance’.
Sonu Nigam responded on Saturday afternoon that at the concert it was not a demand that he had faced but a threat.