Hubballi boy livestreams 'Bharjari' on Facebook, booked

Chetan Kumar, director of the movie 'Bharjari' which released on Friday, has approached the cyber crime police, seeking action against a student who live-streamed the movie on Facebook from a Hubballi theatre.

Santosh, the suspect, live-streamed the movie on the first day first show. Kumar said the link on Facebook has gone viral.

"With the help of my friends, I traced the number and contacted Santosh. He had live-streamed for about 20 minutes," he said. Santosh stopped the live-streaming after he received serious comments against it.

 "We can complain about piracy, but what about live-streaming on Facebook. We won't be able to trace if people liveastream the movie on YouTube. This is an unhealthy development as far as the Kannada film industry is concerned," the director said.

According to the director, just in one day, Bharjari equalled one week's collection of big-budget movies in Kannada. Due to huge demand, an additional show has been facilitated in Urvashi theatre, Bengaluru.

Santosh told the police he had no intention of damaging the revenue prospects of the movie. Police said the student claimed he was a fan of Dhruv Sarja, the lead actor in the movie, and decided to livestream to popularise it.