Warrants Issued Against Meesha Shafi & Mahmood Rahman
Lahore court has issued a warrant against the former members of Overload, Meesha Shafi and Mahmood Rahman, for allegedly stealing equipment from Farhad’s studio.
Beef between Farhad Humayun and the former members of Overload, Meesha Shafi and Mahmood Rahman, is nothing new. It all began after the band split up and rage statements were released by both the parties against each other.
It only got worse when Overload released new version of “Dhol Bajay Ga” which was taken off multiple times on infringement claims by Meesha Shafi. Not just that, the matter was soon taken to courts by Shafi and restraining order was released against Farhad Humayun.
Legally Meesha could be the owner of “Dhol Bajay Ga” as she managed to get restraining order but technically the song was the property of Overload as it was released by Overload and in such cases the song is under joint ownership. The joint ownership generally means two or more artists contributed to the work and the artists intend that their respective contributions be merged into a single work. “Each artist is a co-owner of the entire work, regardless of the amount he or she contributed. Additionally, each co-owner can individually control the work (including selling it) without the permission of the other owners (they still must give the other owners their fair share of any proceeds though).” states Harvard Law’s website.
When we talked to Mahmood about the arrest warrant, he remained a man of few words and said
“The report is completely false“.
While Farhad accepted publicly that it did happen, he also said he wouldn’t like this to be publicized.
“I dont feel the need for the story to be publicized. I guess the word got out because the court issued a statement. It usually does when criminals dont appear for the hearing.” commented Farhad when we spoke to him.
One of our sources, who happen to know both the parties, told us that the stolen equipment in question is a vocal processor.
“When Meesha was singing for Overload, the band bought it for her and then she and Mahmood took it from Farhad’s studio when they broke up.” confirmed the source.
It wasn’t a theft of course, but since Batti was challenged on legal grounds, the equipment could be challenged too.
“It’s really awful – they now may have a criminal record – which is bad if you try to get visas etc” commented our source.
This serves as a lesson for all the Pakistani musicians. The whole matter could easily be resolved if either of the parties had tried to talk about it. Pulling legs in court didn’t help either of the parties. If anything, it did create troubles for both of them.
Update 1 [4th January, 16:00]:
We have received the following statement from Meesha Shafi:
“The recent allegations of warrants of arrest having been issued by a court of law against my husband Mahmood Rahman and myself, as published, are baseless, incorrect and untrue. We have neither been served such warrants nor have we been contacted by the court officials or the police in this regard. We therefore request the media to kindly discontinue the publishing and purporting of such negative and defamatory claims immediately“.
[H/T Haroon Sheikh.]
