Mumbai: Days after Tarak Mehta Ka Ulta Chasma fame actor Munmun Dutta landed in a row for using a casteist slur in her video, a case is now booked against her under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, reports said.
Hansi (Haryana) SP Nitika Gahlaut confirmed to The Hindu that a case was registered under section 3(1) (u) of the SCs and STs Act, following a complaint by Rajat Kalsan, convenor, National Alliance for Dalit Human Rights.
Kalsan had given a complaint to Hansi Police against Ms. Dutta on May 11 and also produced a compact disc with the video in which she allegedly made objectionable comments against the scheduled caste.
An FIR is filed and the matter is under investigation, police said.
Dutta had, in a video on her YouTube, said: “I am coming on youtube and I want to look good don’t want to look like a bhangi.” ‘Bhangi’, often used in a derogatory manner, is a term that could refer to a member of the Bhangi caste, who have been historically oppressed and traditionally restricted to cleaning latrines, manual scavenging, and sweeping.
However, after triggering a row, Dutta took to Twitter and apologized for her improper usage of the word “Because of my language barrier, I was genuinely misinformed about the meaning of the word. Once I was made aware of its meaning I immediately took the part down,” she wrote.