Burqa City Not The Only Plagiarism Allegation Against Laapataa Ladies, Indian Director 1st Accused Kiran Of Copying Movie

Laapataa Ladies, directed by Kiran Rao, has been accused of plagiarism after a social media user uncovered striking similarities with an Arabic movie, Burqa City. Allegations have been levelled against the director for bringing ‘national embarrassment’ as the movie was sent to the 97th Academy Awards as India's official entry. However, this is not the first time Laapataa Ladies has been accused of being ‘copied’. Previously, filmmaker Ananth Mahadevan had alleged that Kiran Rao copied his 1999 film Ghunghat Ke Pat Khol scene-by-scene in her directorial, which features Pratibha Ranta, Sparsh Srivastava and Nitanshi Goel.   

What did Ananth Mahadevan say about Laapataa Ladies?

Following Laapataa Ladies' digital premiere on Netflix, Ananth Mahadevan exposed how the premise of the film, as well as some sequences, are directly lifted from his very little-known film Ghunghat Ke Pat Khol. Speaking to Mid Day, he said, “I have seen Laapataa Ladies, and the beginning as well as many incidents are the same.” Not just back then, until very recently, the director made continuous posts on social media claiming that the Laapataa Ladies makers have copied his film. The issue came to light once again when Kiran Rao's directorial bagged several awards at IIFA 2025.

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Elaborating on the premise of his film, Anant Mahadevan shared, "In our film, a boy from the city goes to his village to get married. The mix-up happens at the railway station when he asks his new bride, who is in a ghunghat (veil), to wait on a bench (as he goes looking for some information). When he returns, he joins the wrong bride." Since Mahadevan's film was released in 1999, it is likely that Kiran Rao took inspiration from it for Laapataa Ladies. However, Ghunghat Ke Pat Khol focuses entirely on the romantic aspects of the mix-up of the two brides. In Kiran Rao's film, love is only a small part of the larger feminist narrative.

Is Laapataa Ladies copied from Arabic film Burqa City? 

On April 1, an X user shared a video from the Arabic film Burqa City, which was released in 2019. The short satirical comedy follows the life of a man who confuses another woman for his wife due to them wearing similar burqas. The 19-minute-long Burqa City also explores patriarchy and the identity of a woman in a society devoid of equality. The user even pointed out that scenes featuring Ravi Kishan in the movie are ‘heavily inspired’ by the Arabic film directed by Fabrice Bracq. 

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Since then, several clips from the Arabic movie have flooded social media with netizens expressing their disappointment with Kiran Rao for passing off Laapataa Ladies as original content. Some even blamed the blatant plagiarism as the reason behind the movie not being selected at the Academy Awards. Kiran and others from the Laapataa Ladies team are yet to react to these allegations.