Kangana Ranaut, today, announced the sequel to her 2019 film Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi. The sequel is titled Manikarnika Returns: The Legend Of Didda. The upcoming film will be based on Kashmir's Queen Didda, who ruled the valley for nearly five decades in the 10th and 11th centuries. Hours after the announcement, author Ashish Kaul, who wrote Didda- The Warrior Queen Of Kashmir, came out in public to claim that he is the sole copyright owner of the biography. Talking to a leading daily, he stated that he approached Kangana to write a foreword for the Hindi version of the book in September 2020. It did come across as a surprise to Ashish.
"I have the exclusive copyrights to the life story of Didda who was the Princess of Lohar (Poonch), now in Jammu & Kashmir, and the Queen of Kashmir. On September 11, 2020, I had written to her on her official email ID, which belongs to her sister Rangoli, requesting her to pen a foreword for my book ‘Didda - Kashmir Ki Yodha Rani’, which is yet to release in 2019. Appended in the same email was the entire life story of the warrior queen," Ashish told.
. , , . @KamalJain_TheKJ , #ManikarnikaReturns: The Legend of Didda pic.twitter.com/sgrqkqilj6
— Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) January 14, 2021
Claiming that Kangana has blatantly violated his sole rights, Ashish felt that the actress has knowingly or unknowingly decided to commit an intellectual fraud. "Is it believable by any stretch of imagination that a story and a book is being usurped by a renowned actor-turned-social activist? She may even turn around and claim that Didda is a historical figure, which is true except the fact that no historian in the world, apart from Kalhan who wrote just two pages on her, and me, who has spent six years on research and documentation, who have information on her. I am deeply aghast that a person as aware, knowledgeable, and apparently a nationalist and a voice for causes, has chosen to belittle her image so. She has blatantly violated my sole rights; it is illegal and an absolute violation of the IPR and copyright laws of the same country that she swears by. I find it so brazen and hideous and I am still inclined to believe that Kangana has been misguided," he said.
(Source: Times Of India)
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