Varun Grover calls out Hansal Mehta over ‘Simran’ controversy

Mumbai: Writer-lyricist Varun Grover has slammed Hansal Mehta for his silence over the credit controversy surrounding “Simran”, saying a filmmaker risks to lose respect when he does not stand by the ideals he endorses through his films.

The “Masaan” writer took to Twitter to express his disappointment in the director.
“Making films about oppressed people while oppressing the writer, the lowest in creative world hierarchy – you lose all respect Hansal saab,” wrote Varun.

Taking a pot-shot at Kangana, the writer modified a popular dialogue from the 2014 film “Queen”.

“‘Mera sense of stealing credit bahut achha hai. Aapko dheere dheere pata chalega. (My sense of stealing credit is great. You will get to know about it slowly)’ – Queen,” Varun wrote.

The can of worms opened after the release of the first poster of the movie recently where Kangana was credited as the ‘additional story and dialogue writer’ ahead of Apurva’s ‘story, screenplay and dialogue’.

Apurva took to Facebook where he debunked actress Kangana’s claim of converting the movie from “one line screenplay to a full-fledged story”.

He slammed his frequent collaborator Hansal, with whom he has worked on critically-acclaimed films like “Citylights” and “Aligarh” for assigning credit to Kangana for writing the entire story of the film.

He concluded the post, “I also wish that my dear friend Hansal shows some spine and either refutes or endorses my story.”