Sandeep Reddy Vanga's Kabir Singh made many headlines but not always for the right reasons. The film faced backlash from netizens and critics for glorifying toxic masculinity and showing the violent, sexist, short-tempered lead character in a good light.
Many said that the film might have a bad influence on the audience and now, after almost four months of the film's release, this has been proven right in a tragic event. Uttar Pradesh-based TikTok star Johnny Dada aka Ashwani Kumar AKA TikTok Villain, who was heavily influenced by Shahid Kapoor's Kabir Singh, murdered Dubai-based flight attendant Nikita Sharma, who he was obsessed with. Nikita was supposed to get married later this year. Ashwani was famous for his angry rants on the video-sharing app.
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Ashwani murdered Nitika after he found out that she was getting married to someone else in December. Not just that, when the police looked into Ashwani's background, they found that he was wanted in three other murder cases in Uttar Pradesh. Ashwani committed suicide last week.
During the course of their investigation, the police also found that Ashwani often posted dialogues from Kabir Singh on his TikTok account. In one of his videos, he is seen mouthing Shahid Kapoor's dialogue from Kabir Singh, "Jo mera nahin ho sakta, usse kisi aur ke hone ka mauka nahin doonga."
Speaking to Mid-day, Kabir Singh director Sandeep Reddy Vanga said that he was shocked to hear about the incident. He said, "I feel sorry for the girl and her family. It is unfortunate that people have lost their lives. As filmmakers, we are responsible for our craft and need to consider the repercussions, but never have my films [endorsed] killing anyone. Kabir Singh or even Arjun Reddy [the Telugu original] never [supported] murder."