Rashid Khan, an Indian music director, has denied Pakistani musician Shuja Haider’s claims that he plagiarized his song and has threatened legal action if he does not apologize.
Taking to Instagram last week, Haider accused Yasser Desai and Rashid Khan of copying his original song Baaghi in their song Piya Re Piya.
“Indian Music directors Yasser Desai and Rashid Khan copied my original song “Baghi “and I am not proud of it. Absolutely not!” wrote Haider.
In response, the Indian composer said the melody and verses are different than Haider’s song and denied the allegations made by the Saiyaan singer.
Indian composer strikes back
“The music and lyrics of my song are starkly different. Yasser Desai, the singer of ‘Piya Re Piya’, also matched the notations for both the songs,” Khan told the Hindustan Times. “Much like him, my friend Imran Abbas from Pakistan and my guru also feel that dono gaanon mein zameen aasmaan ka farq hai [There is a major difference between both songs].”
The composer claims that he “did not even know” who Haider was nor had he listened to his music. Khan also told the publication that “if even four notations” from his composition match Haider’s then he will leave the profession.
In the interview, he also claimed that Haider tried to “gain publicity” by taking a dig at his composition. “I will be taking legal steps on grounds of defamation if Haider does not apologize. He’s trying to tarnish my image. No one has ever accused me of plagiarism and these claims are an insult to my years of training and experience,” said Khan.
Shuja Haider responds to the Indian composer
“I just found out and it looks like a small campaign from their end,” Haider told Dawn Images. “I think this is negative publicity. My intentions were not like this, the way they have been portrayed.”
“I’m not taking interest any longer because it is an Urdu 1 product [the song ‘Baaghi‘] and I composed it. They have not taken any action so I thought I should not either. So now when I stopped talking, they [Rashid Khan and Yasser Desai] have started speaking.”
He also said that Khan and Desai both know the song has been copied and “their interview could be for negative publicity”. “Everyone knows that they have copied the entire verse. This guy [Yasser Desai] once did a cover of that song [‘Baaghi‘] and we had a conversation on Instagram and I appreciated him for that a year ago,” said Haider.
Old habits die hard. An Indian singer previously copied Umair Jaswal’s iconic song and recently another Indian artist made a frame-by-frame copy of Pakistani music video.
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