Focus on music instead of stirring controversies: Barkha Shukla tells Abhijeet

Taking a strong exception to singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya's Twitter barb on a women journalist, former NCW member Barkha Shukla on Monday advised the former to refrain from stirring controversies and focus on his art.

Reprimanding Abhijeet's remark on social media, Shukla said raking up controversies was not a new thing for the singer.

"This is nothing new for singer Abhijeet... We all know he has been involved in these kinds of verbal barbs. He is always involved in these kinds of things, "Shukla told ANI.

"I feel he is a wonderful artist and he should concentrate on his art rather than commenting on these issues," she added.

Shukla's remarks came in wake of the Bhattacharya's 'abusive' language while addressing a woman journalist on Twitter on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Police has also registered a complaint in this regard.

A non-cognizable complaint was registered at the Vasant Vihar Police Station after Swati Chaturvedi, a Delhi-based journalist, approached the police.

The playback singer, who is at the centre of a controversy for hurling abuses at a female journalist on Twitter, had yesterday accused the latter of being an 'anti-national,' while adding that the war has not ended and he will give a proper reply in his defence.

Bhattacharya caused a Twitter furore when one of his tweets - with stark communal overtones - on the murder of the Chennai Infosys techie S Swathi. He dubbed the murder, as a case of 'love jihad', suggesting that her attacker was a Muslim.

When a female journalist and other Twitter users questioned out and demanded that he should be arrested for unnecessarily stoking communal hatred, Abhijeet unleashed a tirade of abuses at her by calling her "an old woman" in his expletive-filled rant.