A promotional gimmick for a new show titles ‘Undekhi’ has gotten online streaming platform SonyLiv into trouble, causing furious outbreak online. The gimmick, which was allegedly a ‘prank call’, had claimed that a man who identified himself as `Rishi’ called him, begging for help and saying that he had witnessed a murder and recorded the incident on his mobile phone. The killer was now trying to kill him, `Rishi’ said.
This wreaked chaos amongst the citizens of Mumbai, who took to Twitter and also filed hundreds of cybercrime complaints with the Mumbai Police. The main control room of Mumbai Police started getting calls from people in the afternoon that they had received strange calls from numbers starting with 140 or 40.
Following this, SonyLiv put out a message on Twitter, apologising for the inconvenience caused. It read, “If you have received a call for our show Undekhi & it has disturbed you we would like to sincerely apologise to you. This was a test activity which has gone out accidentally & our intention was not to cause any kind of discomfort or panic. We sincerely regret any inconvenience.”
SonyLiv’s new series Undekhi, stars Dibyendu Bhattacharya and Harsh Chhaya, and is touted to be a crime thriller. It supposedly revolves around a murder after an intoxicated rich man shoots a dancer dead after she refuses to match steps with him at a stag party. Rishi, who is a photographer captures the entire crime and is then threatened by powerful people.