India: Controversial MS Dhoni photo altered, cops tell court

New Delhi: Police Saturday told a Delhi court that Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s controversial photograph in a magazine, depicting him as a Hindu deity and holding a shoe in his hand, was “animated”.

In a report given to Metropolitan Magistrate Mayuri Singh, police told the court that the photo was a “work of art” and Dhoni had “no intention to insult religion”.

The court was hearing a complaint, filed by Rajinder Singh Raja, national general secretary of a social organisation Shivsena Hindustan, seeking registration of first information report (FIR) against Dhoni and publisher and editor of a magazine for allegedly insulting Hindu religion.

The report, filed by police officials of Nand Nagri Police Station in east Delhi, said: “It is submitted that the photograph of Mahendra Singh Dhoni published in the said magazine may not be a deliberate or intentional act of him.”

“The photograph of Dhoni published in the magazine is a work of art and animation done by the artist/publisher of the magazine,” the report added.

The magazine published from Film City in Noida, neighbouring Delhi, which is in the jurisdiction of Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Buddha Nagar district, police said.

The court would next hear the case on September 9.

The complaint alleged that in the April 2013 edition of the magazine, Dhoni was portrayed as a god holding products of several firms including a shoe in his hand.