Dhananjaya’s Hoysala shoot in Belagavi causes public confusion

A few days ago, a viral video clip of what appeared to be a police officer mercilessly kicking a common man around in the middle of a busy junction and then hauling him off, was all over social media. In response to the clip, netizens began asking for strict action against the officer concerned. Comments ranged from “Polie brutality has no limits”, to “Inhuman act. Rakshasa avatara of the police”, “Suspend that policeman”, to “Is there no humanity? According to law you are not allowed to beat a person in public. You must be charged for this”, among others.

Soon enough, it emerged that the clip was actually from a film shoot. Turns out, Daali Dhananjaya was shooting for Hoysala at the Rani Chennamma Circle in Belagavi, where this scene unfolded. While the movie clip was misinterpreted, netizens also felt that such unrealistic visuals portrayed the department negatively on social media. “Stop this nonsense. It creates bad impression of Karnataka Police as most people think that it is real,” said a netizen, while another felt that something ought to be done about movies promoting extra-judicial violence. Responding to a police fact check tweet about this video, another user wrote, “Portraying such police behaviour even film shooting is bad and police department need to initiate action on the team.” Yet another response read, ”Such scenes must be removed from the movie by the censor board since they demean the entire police force.” Even former Bengaluru Commissioner of Police Bhaskar Rao tweeted, “Very unfortunate portrayal of police. The confidence of people will go down further…”

Hoysala, which is Dhananjaya’s second film with KRG Studios, has the actor playing a police officer. The film, directed by N Vijay Kumar, pairs Dhananjaya with Amrutha Iyengar yet again. Hoysala was meant to be a November 2022 release, but has now been pushed ahead and will be in theatres on March 30, 2023.