Owing to a barrage of complaints from several Muslim groups against the song ‘Manikya Malaraya Poovi’ (from the Malayalam film Oru Adaar Love), the Hyderabad Police have reportedly sent a notice under Section 160 of CrPC to filmmaker Omar Lulu. Complaints against the song surfaced last week when several Muslim groups felt that associating flirtatious glances with a song meant for Prophet Mohammad was offensive.
According to The Times of India, the police have given Lulu 15 days to respond, based on which the police will decide if the case must be dropped or a notice under Section 41 should be issued.
Directed by Omar Lulu, the video features a girl (Priya Prakash Varrier) winking at a boy (Roshan), who visibly starts blushing. Soon enough, this part in the video became the subject of several memes and parody videos on the Internet. The song was originally written by PMA Jabbar, who has been writing ‘Mappilapattu’ (Mappila refers to the Muslim community of north Kerala and Pattu means songs) from the age of 16.
A complaint was first filed at the Falaknuma Police station in Hyderabad by Muqueet Khan who said that the song is about Prophet Mohammad and hence linking a religious song with romance is offensive.
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Hyderabad’s Jamia Nizamia Seminary had also issued a fatwa over the song, requesting the CBFC chairman to take down the song from the Internet.
While Omar Lulu and the film’s music composer, Shaan Rahman said that they won’t delete any scene as the video celebrates love, it is reported that they are likely to remove the song from the film or YouTube soon.