Ekta Kapoor
It was a chase right out of a Bollywood film. A property, vital to the makers of Veerey Di Wedding, was ‘abducted’, with the demand of a ransom. Only, that the property in concern was the official Instagram account of the Kareena Kapoor and Sonam-starrer, and the ransom, a role in the film. On Friday, the cast and crew of the Ekta Kapoor production were in the midst of filming when they noticed something amiss with the film’s account on the photo-sharing platform.
The makers grew suspicious after they noticed that the profile image had been changed to a sketch of a monkey. Apart from featuring an emoji of the Pakistan flag, the updated description was amended to read: “I am paki papu bhai (sic).”
Speaking to mid-day on the condition of anonymity, a member of the film’s digital promotion team says, “We had noticed the development and others had also informed us about it. We immediately reported the hacking to the Instagram headquarters in Mumbai and retrieved [control of the account]. It was hacked for about 90 minutes, allegedly by a resident claiming to be Pakistani. He went live and spoke mainly in Arabic, announcing that he’d return the account if the producers gave him a role in the film.” The social-networking company sprung into action and retrieved the account, also tracing the hacker’s origin to the neighbouring country.
While social media handles of celebrities have been hacked in the past, the incident marks the first time a Bollywood film’s account has been compromised. Co-producer Rhea Kapoor and Ekta Kapoor remained unavailable for comment.
Hackers love Bollywood
>> In September 2016, Hrithik Roshan’s Facebook page had been hacked. An ‘enterprising individual’ went live on his feed for a few minutes.
>> He can split a bullet into two but can’t avert hackers. In August 2016, Rajinikanth fell prey to online theft when his Twitter account was hacked. His daughter, Aishwarya, took to her handle to inform fans of the development.
>> In August 2015, hackers cracked the code to acquire access to Amitabh Bachchan’s Twitter handle. Links to adult sites were apparently shared on his feed.
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