Tanmay Bhat’s gag video on Lata Manageshkar, Sachin Tendulkar taken off YouTube

The controversial video featuring comedian Tanmay Bhat mimicking and allegedly mocking Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Manageshkar has been removed from video viewing site YouTube, on Tuesday. The Mumbai police has also contacted the social networking site Facebook, to remove the video from the site.

The city police’s special branch started probing the matter following outrage by various political parties including Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) which protested by holding a dharna at the cyber police station at BKC demanding action against Bhat. The MNS’ cine wing led by Ameya Khopkar also approached the Shivaji Park police with a written application seeking to lodge an FIR against Bhat for making defamatory remarks and cracking jokes about the two legends.

The special branch is now compiling a report regarding the same. “We will be going through the transcripts and the contents of the video and then decide whether it can be a cognisable offence or not,” said a senior officer. The report will be submitted to the local police station and also to the cyber police.

On May 26, Bhat who is part of All India Bakchod (AIB), a stand up comedy group posted a video on his Snapchat account ‘thetanmay’ where he mimicked the singer and master blaster. Titled Sachin vs Lata — Civil War the video uses the application’s face swap feature and shows a conversation between Mr Tendulkar and Ms Mangeshkar. The comedian had in his video added a disclaimer also stated that he loves the two legends but was just having fun.

The cyber cell, which is looking at the technical side of the issue, said that they are unsure how to go about Snapchat where the video was first posted. “Snapchat has no feature of keeping a history of its content. Videos and pictures posted remain for minutes or maximum for 24 hours. While that means it is no longer available on that site, we don’t know how we can restrict someone uploading it again,” said a cyber cell officer.