Music composer Vishal Dadlani meets Jain monk Tarun Sagar, apologises in person

Chandigarh, Sep 21: Music composer Vishal Dadlani today met Jain monk Tarun Sagar and apologised to him in person for his sarcastic tweet on the spiritual figure that had kicked up a storm. The monk asked him to seek forgiveness from the Jain community for hurting their sentiments.

After the composer apologised as per the Jain community's tradition of seeking "Panch Mafee" that included holding of ears, Sagar said though he had already forgiven Dadlani, now he would appeal to the community to forgive him and withdraw protest against him and treat the matter as closed.

"I have been saying this right from the start when these events unfolded (when controversy broke out after Dadlani's tweet) that personally I don't feel hurt or sad.

I was talking to Vishal today and I told him that Jain community has been hurt, it was their demand that he should come to me in person and apologise only after which they will stop protests against him.

"He came from Mumbai today and brought 'shriphal' from there to seek apology," Sagar said on Dadlani apologising for the tweet on the address made by the monk to the Haryana Assembly last month. Sagar said, "Anyone can make a mistake, even me, it is not a big thing, but realisation of the same is important and one should forgive such a person."

"It was Jain community's request that if Vishal appears before me, he should be asked to seek Panch Mafee and the matter will end there," Sagar said.

After this, Vishal stood before Sagar with folded hands and was even made to hold his ears and apologised as directed that also included the composer saying that in future he will never hurt anyone's religious sentiments.

Afterwards, Sagar appealed to the Jain community to forgive Dadlani. Sagar also appealed to those who had registered FIR against the composer to end the matter against him.

Dadlani later told reporters, "I apologised over Twitter 32 times and Tarun Sagarji also forgave me, but only thing is that I appeared in person now. I wanted to come personally earlier, but there was a FIR registered, so I did not want that people should feel that I have come here just because a case has been slapped against me."

"I felt it from my heart that my remarks generated so much controversy and people felt hurt. "What I had wanted to say is that religion and governance should not be mixed together.

What people understood from that tweet of mine was unfortunate. It was not my intention to hurt anyone's sentiments. What I had said was as per Constitution, religion and governance should not be mixed because we are a secular nation..," Dadlani said.

PTI