Mumbai Raza Academy demands viral song be deleted from Malayalam movie

Raza academy of Mumbai on Wednesday passed a resolution against Malayalam movie 'Oru Adaar Love' for hurting sentiments of the Muslim community in one of its viral songs, featuring Priya Prakash Varrier, and demanded the song be deleted.

The song 'Manikya Malaraya Poovi' has been trending on social media for Varrier's expressions -- the wink and eyebrow dance.

The resolution will now be forwarded to Mumbai Police Commissioner and the censor board as an official complaint from the academy.

Raza Academy Secretary Maulana Khalilur Rahman Noorie said, "She's been winking in the song. This is only done by prostitutes and not by people playing a character of someone related to Prophet Mohammad's family."

"First of all, she should not have played that character. No actress should play a character of any priest or figure belonging to any religion, be it Hindu, Muslim or Christianity. This hurts our religious sentiments," Rahman said.

"We do not care if she dances nude, hangs around with 10 people or sleeps with them. Just don't touch the figures that hurt our sentiments.

"The country has recently overcome a huge controversy related to Padmavat movie. We believe that we are in minority and people think they have a right to play with our sentiments. They think that we would not be able to do anything. If we do anything, the government will only fire bullets.

"Our sentiments have been hurt many times since this BJP-RSS government has come. We will protest against the song and come out on roads if they do not apologise and remove the song.

"We have asked the censor board to delete the character and the song from the movie."

The director of the movie, however, said the song shared the message of love beyond borders and the controversy involving its lyrics and social media sensation Priya Prakash Varrier's expressions was totally unnecessary.