Rapper Sidhu Moosewala booked for promoting violence after he hails Arms Act FIR in song

Punjabi rapper and singer Sidhu Moosewala, who has been an active campaigner for the coronavirus lockdown, was booked under Arms Act in May.

Punjabi rapper and singer Sidhu Moosewala | Twitter | @SidhuMooseWala

Chandigarh: Punjabi rapper and singer Sidhu Moosewala, who has been an active campaigner for the coronavirus lockdown in the state, was Monday booked for allegedly promoting violence and gun culture with his new song Sanju. 

This is the second case filed against Moosewala in as many months. In May, he was booked under the Arms Act after photographs of him firing an AK-47 rifle at a shooting range during the Covid-19 lockdown went viral. He is on bail in the case, and his new song seems to express his pride in the Arms Act charge. 

Released last week on Moosewala’s official YouTube channel, Sanju has notched over 17.8 million views in 3 days. The lyrics seek to draw a comparison between the rapper and Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt, who was convicted under the Arms Act in a case dating back to the 1993 Mumbai blasts.

Punjab Additional Director General of Police Arpit Shukla, the director of the Punjab Bureau of Investigations, said, in Sanju, Moosewala seems to wear the FIR against him like a badge of honour. 

“Moosewala deliberately wants to incite and mislead the youth of this border state, which bore the brunt of terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s, by glorifying the use of AK-47 rifles and other weapons,” he added in a press statement. 

Shukla said police will move the Punjab and Haryana High Court for cancelation of Moosewala’s bail.

Corona warrior?

In March this year, Moosewala released a song called Gurbaksh Gwacha (The lost Gurbaksh) that was dedicated to police. The song was based on Punjab’s first reported coronavirus casualty, a man named Baldev Singh, who was also identified as a “super-spreader”. 

Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta had tweeted the song from his official handle, encouraging people to listen to it, but removed it after Baldev Singh’s neighbours said it brought a bad name to their village.

In April, Moosewala also participated in the Punjab Police campaign “Main Bhi Harjeet Singh” to hail the courage of sub-inspector Harjeet Singh, whose hand was cut off by assailants when he tried to stop them from violating lockdown regulations (his hand was later reattached in a successful surgery). 

‘Mocking police and judiciary’

Sanju starts with a news clip of him being booked in the Arms Act case. This news clip is later merged with news reports of Sanjay Dutt’s conviction and sentencing for an Arms Act offence. 

The song, Shukla said, projects being booked as the sign of a ‘real man’.

“Gabru de naal Santali (47) jud gayi, ghato ghat saja paanj saal vat de, gabru utte case jehra Sanjay Dutt te, jatt utte case jehra Sanjay Dutt te… (The man has been associated with an AK-47 and the minimum punishment is five years in jail, the same case that Sanjay Dutt faced, this man is facing too).”

“…Awa tawa bolde vakil sohniye, sari duniya da oh judge sunida, jithe saadi chaldi appeal sohniye…  (The lawyers keep saying something or the other but the real judge of this world is listening, where my appeal works).”

Shukla said the song undermines the judiciary, police and advocates. 

He added that Moosewala had been booked for a similar offence in February this year. “The singer is incorrigible and has repeatedly committed such offences,” he said.