Ram Gopal Varma’s Telugu film, ‘Murder’ has been cleared by the Telangana High court on Friday (6th November). The film is based on the real-life story of Perumalla Pranay (24), a Dalit murdered by his upper-caste father-in-law, T Maruthi Rao two years ago.
The above-mentioned case dates back to 14th September 2018 in Nalgonda when a contract killer hired by Rao murdered Pranay in broad daylight as Pranay was coming out of a hospital with his pregnant wife Amrutha. Rao did not agree with marriage and hence got Pranay killed. Four days later, Rao, his brother Sravan and three others were arrested by Nalgonda Police in connection with the murder. They were released on bail later. Even after Pranay’s murder, Rao had repeatedly struggled to bring his daughter back home. He committed suicide on 8th March 2020.
Inspired by the case, Varma made this film under the banner of Natti’s Entertainment. When Varma released the promo on YouTube, Amrutha moved to a special court for SC/ST cases. She demanded to stall the film’s release. She also asked that the promo of the film be withdrawn from YouTube. Amrutha argued that Varma was trying to earn from the family’s tragedy while she’s still suffering the trauma of losing her husband and father.
On 24th August, the court had stalled the release of the film and the promo. Therefore, Varma approached the High Court. On Friday, a division bench of the state high court comprising justice M S Ramachandra Rao and Justice T Amarnath Goud nullified the order by permitting Varma to release the film, subject to certain conditions. The conditions include not taking the names of Amrutha, Rao, and Pranay in the film and its publicity material. The bench also ordered Varma to not refer to any incidents that happened in Amrutha’s life.
Varma welcomed the decision. Post-hearing, he tweeted, “VERY HAPPY to inform that our good intentions of making the film MURDER has been rightly understood by the honourable COURT ..Details will be given once the order is with us ..THANKING EVERYONE”.
VERY HAPPY to inform that our good intentions of making the film MURDER has been rightly understood by the honourable COURT ..Details will be given once the order is with us ..THANKING EVERYONE 🙏🙏🙏💐💐💐 pic.twitter.com/lmdD4mOWVd
— Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) November 6, 2020
