Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights on Thursday issued a notice to OTT platform Netflix for the ‘wrongful’ depiction of kids in the web series “Bombay Begum” and asked it to submit an action taken report within 24 hours.
The Commission has taken strong exception to a minor having been shown taking cocaine at a party in a scene.
In a two-page notice, the Commission has said that “from normalization casual sex by minors, web series are now normalising the use of drugs”.
The notice follows complaints received by the Commission from two Twitter handles.
The apex child rights body has also taken into cognizance a scene from the series where minors are shown taking pictures of their “developed body parts” and send them to a classmate.
“…series with this kind of content will not only pollute the young minds of the children, and may also lead to abuse and exploitation of children in the hands of perpetrators/ offenders(sic),” says the notice.
The NCPCR does not allow representing, portraying, or glorifying children in India in such a manner on any media platform/ internet/ OTT platform, the notice said.
Netflix should take extra precaution in streaming any content in respect to children or for children, the strong-worded letter by the Commission has also said.
The development comes soon after another web series ‘Taandav’ on Amazon Prime was forced to edit parts of its content following a major controversy. The series had been charged with “ridiculing Hindu Gods and Goddesses.”