FIR in Kohima against online singing contest organisers

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Aug. 16 (EMN): A first information report (FIR) has been registered against an online singing contest organisers for ‘cheating and hoodwinking’ some participants through a competition which was held recently.

Five persons from Nagaland have lodged a complaint against ADJ Music, for their ‘Indies Singing Superstar Competition (online)’, in which they had taken part. The case has been registered at North police station in Kohima.

In the FIR, a copy of which was made available to Eastern Mirror, they accused the organisers of indulging in ‘unfair fraudulent practises against the contestants’.

The contestants alleged the organisers of “depriving and cheating the contestants by using unfair means of practice and trickery in their music contest platform under the banner Indies Singing Superstar Competition (online)”.

The organisers were accused of accumulating money from the contestants in the semi-final round in spite of the competition being free of cost from the beginning.

There was an “unfair means of selection in the semi-final round by overlooking the selection criteria”, the complainants alleged.

They also complained against the organisers for “calling some contestants to convince, manipulate and manoeuvre, through malicious offer and unfair means the night before the declaration of result”.

According to the complainants, the organisers were trying to convince a contestant to pay ‘judges fee and win the title in return’.

Further, the five participants accused the organiser of ‘hoodwinking’ the contestants to pay some amount with the promise of promoting the contestants on ADJ Music social media platforms, with no intention of fulfilling the promise. It added that the organisers had manipulated the number of views on YouTube.

Speaking to Eastern Mirror, one of the contestants and a complainant, Vipito Swu, said that they had decided to file an FIR against ADJ Music Production, as there were a lot of ‘aspiring musicians like me who had faced similar situations but do not voice out’.

Remaining silent would give the organisers ‘more advantage to exploit talents and make profit out of it,’ he said.

The 22-year-old, who is a final year student in Kohima, said that the majority of the participants were aged between 20 to 30.

He informed that the police are investigating the matter.

According to Swu, more online competitions (ongoing) are being organised by ADJ Music Production.

Due to the lockdown, Swu said, he thought of taking part in the singing contest when his friend shared the poster of the online competition.

It was when he got selected for semi-finals round that he became suspicious of the organiser’s motive, he said.

‘Out of the blue, they (organisers) asked the semi finalists to submit INR 1000 each in the name of promoting their videos on ADJ Music Production’s social media platforms. Some of the participants have submitted the amount but their videos were nowhere to be found on social media pages as promised except for one person,’ Swu said.

He also alleged that one of his friends who fulfilled the criteria to qualify for the next round failed to get through, while others who did not meet the criteria got through.

He went on to add that the first runner-up of the competition was not given any prize money, which is INR 20,000, as mentioned in the online poster.

‘The incident should be a warning for people, especially the youngsters, whose talents can be exploited by others,’ he said.