India’s Supreme Court stays criminal proceedings against Priya Prakash Varrier

NEW DELHI: The India’s top court today stayed all criminal proceedings against teenage actress Priya Prakash Varrier for the ‘wink song’, against which some Muslim groups had lodged FIRs.

The Supreme Court of India also said that no FIR could be lodged in future in any state against Varrier for allegedly hurting religious sentiments of Muslims.

On Tuesday, the SC agreed to an urgent hearing of a petition by the teenage Malayalam actress who’s seeking the quashing of FIRs lodged against her and film makers for a song that some groups feel offends the religious sentiments of Muslims.

The actress who won millions of hearts with her expressions in the song ‘Manikya Malaraya Poovi’ in the yet to be completed Malayalam film ‘ Oru Adaar Love ‘, moved the Supreme Court on Monday.

In just 10 days since its release on social media platforms, the ‘wink’ song – as it’s being called – notched up a record 34 million views. But soon, it turned into a nightmare as the 18-year-old BCom student found an FIR lodged against her and the filmmakers at Falaknuma police station in Hyderabad.

https://arynews.tv/en/trolls-target-priya-prakash-varrier-pre-debut-pics/

The FIR alleged that the song had hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims.

In their petition, Priya and her director invoked artists’ fundamental right to speech and expression and sought quashing of the FIRs.

A group of young men in Hyderabad filed the case against the filmmakers claiming that the lyrics of the film’s teaser song Oru Adaar Love had hurt religious sentiment of Muslims.

Responding to her overnight popularity, Ms Varrier told the Indian media that the director wanted to capture “something cute between me and my hero”. So she was told to gesture with her eyebrows and wink at him.

But on a complaint, a case was registered last week for “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs”.

The complaint was by Abdul Muqeet, an engineering student, who claimed that the song makes an “objectionable” reference to Islam’s holy personalities.

A video that shot Priya Prakash to overnight fame