HYDERABAD: Criminal action is likely against producer and director P Prabhakar for his controversial Telugu serial Muddhu Bidda. The TV soap ran into a controversy a few days ago when the NGO AP Balala Hakkula Sangham made a complaint against the serial to the State Human Rights Commission, alleging the serial was provoking criminal tendencies among children.
When the Balala Hakkula Sangham approached SHRC on September 9, the commission said the actions involved on part of the director were criminal in nature and directed the city police commissioner to conduct an inquiry and submit a report. The hearing of the case would be held in November, according to the APBHS president Achyuta Rao.
The NGO approached the additional commissioner of police, Santosh Mehra on Tuesday and requested him to take action against Prabhakar for instigating criminal attitude in children through his serial. The ACP directed the Central Zone DCP Akun Sabharwal to give a report by September 25, Achyuta Rao said speaking to mediapersons on Wednesday.
There are two child characters in the serial, Jwala and Karuna. Jwala (9) wants to kill Karuna (10) as Karuna is the illegitimate child of Jwala's father. The serial shows how the child plans to kill her half sister by poisoning her juice, trying to suffocate her to death by snuffing a pillow and other such acts.
Commenting on the issue, child psychologist Lakshmi Narasimhan said a child as young as eight or nine years can in no way think of ways to kill a person unless the actions are guided by an adult and is ingrained into the child's mind. "Children get jealous and are capable of disliking a person. The maximum they would do is want the other sibling not to get new clothes or quarrel with them. It ends with trivial things and it is farfetched to portray a child to be planning to kill a person," said the psychologist. She added that such serials would disturb the minds of adults and children watching it.
Actor and choreographer Keshav Deepak, who is part of theatre group Nishumbitha, opined that creative freedom has to used in a responsible manner.
"The scrip writer's pen must be sharp and they must think of the impact it would have on the audience while writing something negative." He says the same feeling of the child could have been depicted in a better way if the serial had shown the character think what would be the repercussion of this negative act.