Few songs are as culturally-defining as Abrar Ul Haq’s ‘Nach Punjaban’ is to bhangra. The singer claims the rights to this iconic song were taken from him and “fraudulently” sold for millions to Bollywood.
In an episode of the Geo Podcast, Haq told host Mubashir Hashmi he had neither authorised the use of the song for Karan Johar’s film Jugg Jugg Jeeyo, nor was he benefitting from it.
The singer talked about how a company in London had claimed the rights to some of his most famous tracks, including ‘Nach Punjaban’ and ‘Billo De Ghar’ — something that caused problems when he re-recorded the latter for Coke Studio. He claimed the company had gotten songs taken off YouTube after wrongfully claiming to own copyrights to them.
“Look, I haven’t sold [the rights] to them, they assumed I had. And when we asked them about it, they gave a very interesting answer. They said, ‘You have that friend, Haroon, right?’ I said I did and they said I should ask Haroon… I told them I hadn’t given the rights to Haroon either, I have the rights. All they said was, ‘You can ask Haroon.’”
Haq said the company had prepared “fake documents” with “forged signatures” in London and litigation there was expensive. He said he wasn’t the only victim of this scam, other artists had been impacted too.
