Singer arrested in Bangladesh for singing classical music

A homeless Bangladeshi singer has sparked an uproar on social media after police arrested him this morning and told him to ‘stop painful renditions of classical songs’.

The said singer is popularly known as ‘Hero Alam’ and has a huge following on the internet.

After his unique style and recent arrest, Alam has nearly two million Facebook followers and nearly 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube.

One of his songs, ‘Arabic Song‘, in which he is seen in traditional Arab dress on a sand dune with camels in the background, has received 17 million views.

But he has also been criticized by critics, particularly for his versions of classic songs by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore and Bangladesh’s national poet Qazi Nazrul Islam.

Alam told AFP news agency on Wednesday that police subjected him to “mental torture” last week and prevented him from playing classical music. And said he was too young to be a singer and had to sign a waiver.

‘The police picked me up at six in the morning and kept me there for eight hours. He asked me why I sing songs of Rabindranath Tagore and Nazrul Islam.’

Dhaka Chief Detective Haroon Al Rasheed told reporters that Alam has also apologized for wearing police uniform in his videos without permission.

Haroon Rasheed said that we have received many complaints against him. ‘They have completely changed the traditional style. He assured us that he would not do it all again.’

Dhaka Deputy Police Commissioner Farooq Hussain rejected the 37-year-old scholar’s claim that he was pressured to change his name.

“They are making these comments just to go viral on social media,” he told AFP.

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After his release, Alam released a new video in which he shows himself behind bars in prison garb and mournfully says that he is about to be hanged.

The treatment of the scholar sparked outrage on social media, with commentators and activists calling it an attack on individual rights.

According to Alam, he has acted in several films and also participated in the 2018 Bangladesh parliamentary elections as an independent candidate, securing 638 votes.

Alam said that after becoming famous, he started using the word hero for himself.

“I felt like I was really a hero,” he said. That’s why I named myself Hero Alam.’

‘At the moment it seems you can’t even sing freely in Bangladesh.’

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