Akshay Kumar’s Kesari Chapter 2 accused of plagiarism: ‘They haven’t tried to hide, it’s clear copy-paste'

Akshay Kumar’s period drama Kesari Chapter 2 has come under the spotlight after popular spoken-word poet Yahya Bootwala accused the makers of plagiarising part of his poem and adding it to the film’s dialogue without due credit and remuneration.

Yahya took to Instagram on Saturday to share a comparative video between his poem on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, which he recited in a YouTube video that came out in 2020, and a scene from the Karan Singh Tyagi directorial where Ananya Panday’s character is seen saying a dialogue that sounds similar to the lines of the poem. The video was later deleted.

Sharing the video, Yahya wrote, “Here are the two clips, and honestly, this is a clear copy-paste, and it’s not like they’ve tried to hide it as well; matlab phusphusana jaisa shabd bhi uthaya hai. Yes, logo ke khayal mil sakte hai; people can think in a similar way, but kisi ek topic par bilkul ek jaisi lines likh dena is anything but a coincidence.”

He added, “As writers, the worst thing you can do to a fellow writer is pick their material up, blatantly use it without giving credits, and this is what I feel dialogue writer Sumit Saxena has done here.”

After the video was deleted from Instagram, Yahya wrote another post and said, “The reel about Kesari 2 using my lines has been taken off from my Instagram. I haven't removed the reel. Nonetheless, I will keep talking about the issue till the matter is resolved.”

There has been no response from the makers as of now.

The film, produced by Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions, was released in theatres on April 18. It is a courtroom drama based on the life of C Sankaran Nair, a lawyer who stood up to the British Raj following the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919.