MUMBAI: Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur has condemned the recent sting operation done by British tabloid on Slumdog Millionaire child artist Rubina’s father.
Kapur writes on his blog, "I just worked with Rubina, the little girl from Slumdog Millionaire – and what a joy she was to work with. Happy and full of laughter, her smile would light up smiles for the whole crew, as she no doubt did for the whole world in Slumdog Millionaire."
"I had been reading about what was going on with her father’s alleged attempts to ‘sell’ her. I was aghast though at the sting operation done by that British Tabloid, which instead of being condemned worldwide is being heralded as a great piece of journalism," he wrote.
Kapur opines that not a single thought was given to the trauma that the little girl would go through with worldwide publicity that her own father was trying to sell her.
He questions, "What was the tabloid trying to do? Trying to push a father to name a price for his daughter’s adoption? To go to a poor man in a slum who has spent his life not knowing where the next meal is going to come from, and then dangle a few hundred thousand pounds in front of him to entice and entangle him into a negotiation for the adoption of his daughter? By enticing him to say those words that would make headlines all over the world? How dare they judge and manipulate other people and their moral predicaments from their comfortable colonial point of view. I would rather have them arrested for obscene suggestions and offers than the father for coming to the negotiating table.
