A Bangladeshi singer and social media star has been ordered by the police to stop performing classics from the national repertoire, following allegations that he was massacred.
Hero Alom has almost two million followers on Facebook and almost 1.5 million on YouTube, where he has been streaming his songs in quirky videos for several years.
But the 37-year-old singer has drawn the ire of critics, accusing him of killing off classic titles from Bengali literature Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore and poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, two national treasures.
“We have received many complaints against him,” Dhaka Police Chief Inspector Harun ur Rashid told reporters. “He totally perverted the (traditional) style. We asked him why he did that. He assured us he wouldn’t do it again.”
Hero Alom claimed that he was “mentally tortured” last week while undergoing police questioning. “The police came for me at six in the morning and held me for eight hours,” he told AFP on Wednesday at his Dhaka studio, “they asked me why I was singing Rabindra and Nazrul songs.”
The police asked him to stop singing these classics and to sign an “apology” message. They also demanded that he no longer appear in a police uniform in his videos and that he change his name, the singer said. “They also told me to take a good look at myself in a mirror, because I don’t see myself as a hero at all,” he continued.
“If someone tries to gag you, I object”
His alias “Hero” stuck with him when he began to find success in his home district of Bogra, 150 kilometers north of Dhaka. “I felt like a hero. I took the name Hero Alom,” he explained, “I won’t give it up.”
Dhaka Deputy Police Commissioner Farook Hossain denied that the singer was asked to change his name. His treatment by the police outraged his followers on social media, but also human rights defenders.
“I am not a fan of his songs or his acting. But if someone tries to gag him, I am against it,” journalist Aditya Arafat reacted.
Since his interrogation, Hero Alam has posted a new video of himself behind bars, in prison uniform and looking dejected. “Currently, it seems that we can no longer sing freely in Bangladesh,” lamented Hero Alom.
Source: BFM TV