Ganesh Pol, the father of the boy who sang in front of Narendra Modi during the prime minister's visit to Germany, has criticised comedian Kunal Kamra and called him out for sharing an edited video of his son on Twitter.
On Wednesday, Kamra posted on Twitter a morphed video of the seven-year-old singing a song in front of Modi in Berlin. Kamra used the boy’s video to take a jab at the PM.
Pol said: "He is my 7-year-old son, who wanted to sing this song for his beloved Motherland. Though he is still very young but certainly he loves his country more than you Mr. Kamra or Kachra watever u are."
"Keep the poor boy out of your filthy politics & try to work on your poor jokes," Pol added, tagging Kamra.
In an exclusive interview with India Today, Pol said: “Whose permission did he take before morphing or modifying that video? Few people are saying that it's a comedy, but comedy can’t be done with kids.”
The boy sang a patriotic song for Prime Minister Modi in Berlin, who enjoyed listening to him. Modi praised the boy’s talent and said "Shaabash (well done)."
Kamra had shared the video of PM Modi’s interaction with the child. But he replaced the song that the boy sang — 'Hey Janmabhoomi Bharat' with another 'Mehengayi daayan khaaye jaat hain' from the 2010 movie 'Peepli Live'.
Kamra also faced backlash from various Twitter users who slammed him for ruining the boys' image and making fun of the video. In response, Kamra made another Tweet saying, "The father is guiding the child towards demo singing to PM while everyone has cameras rolling & footage shared on social media, PM got the kid in public domain, not me. I just made the child sing a song the PM much rather hear…"
PM Modi reached Berlin early morning on Monday during his three-day tour to European countries of Germany, France, and Denmark.
Meanwhile, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has taken cognizance of the complaint against Kamra. The child rights body has written to Twitter and Delhi Police saying, "using minors to propagate political ideologies is a violation of the Juvenile Justice Act."
The commission has requested that the video should be taken off the platform immediately and appropriate action should be taken against Kunal Kamra for posting such content. The child rights body has also sought a report within seven days.
(with India Today inputs)