Popular small-screen actress Mehazabien Chowdhury will make her silver screen debut on December 20 with the Shankha Dasgupta film ‘Priyo Maloti’.
While the actress and the entire team are now busy promoting the movie, they created a sudden controversy by placing a poster over graffiti of Sohagi Jahan Tonu at the Student-Teacher Center (TSC) of Dhaka University (DU) on Wednesday.
One of the most talked-about rape incidents in the country, Sohagi Jahan Tonu, the victim, was a student of Cumilla Victoria College and a member of Victoria College Theatre who was gang-raped and found dead at Cumilla Moynamati Cantonment in March 2016.
As the poster placement stirred huge criticism on social media from the netizens, Mehazabien finally went to TSC on Wednesday evening and tore up the poster which she previously placed over Sohagi Jahan Tonu’s graffiti.
Earlier on the day, the actress went to TSC to promote the movie and put up the posters of ‘Priyo Maloti’ on various walls with her own hands. The controversy sparked after a video went viral on social media in which Mehazabien was seen putting up posters over the graffiti of Tonu and also some of the other July movement graffiti on the walls.
The actress came under fire over the matter and some of the netizens raised the question of how a star like her could promote her movie by putting the posters on the graffiti of Tonu or July movement. Rifat Rashid, one of the coordinators of the anti-discrimination student movement They demanded Mehazabien apologise to the netizens in a Facebook status.
“Mehazabien doesn’t know my martyred sister Tonu? How dare you put your poster over the graffiti? We will not tear this poster in TSC, Mehazabien Chowdhury. You will come and tear this poster yourself,” Rifat wrote in the Facebook post.
Shortly after that, Mehazabien appeared at TSC and removed the poster of her debut film ‘Priyo Maloti’ with her own hands. She also apologised in a post from her verified Facebook ID on Wednesday night.
In that post, Mehazabien wrote, “Our team went to TSC today (December 18) for the promotion of the film ‘Priyo Maloti’. Many joined us in promoting the film, and due to the heavy rush, the campaign had to end quickly. A poster was placed over the graffiti of the late Sohagi Jahan Tonu by mistake and unintentional misplacement. We all know Tonu’s tragedy and the fight for justice for her murder is still going on.”
She added, “What happened regarding the postering was a completely unintentional mistake. We immediately removed the posters and observed a minute’s silence. We hope you will forgive our unintentional mismanagement.:
However, many netizens are calling out the incident as a negative promotional and marketing strategy, and labelling the incident as a fabricated and intentional one.
‘Priyo Maloti’ stars Mehazabien Chowdhury in the title role, Maloti Rani Das, as a lower-middle-class woman depicting social struggles. The film marks her first-ever appearance on the big screen after a 15-year career primarily on television and other digital platforms.
Set to hit cinemas on December 20, ‘Priyo Maloti’ received a ‘U’ rating (appropriate for audiences of all ages) from the Certification Board, and it has already earned international recognition from different festivals across the world. The film, produced by Frame Per Second in collaboration with the streaming platform Chorki, also marks its writer-director Shankha Dasgupta’s debut in feature film direction.
