Udit Narayan: I got calls from an unknown number saying, ‘Tumhare poore pariwar ko khatam kar doonga'

Playback singer Udit Narayan has claimed that he has been receiving abusive and threatening calls from unknown numbers for a while. He has now approached the police.

Talking to Bombay Times, the singer said, “On April 6, 2019, I got a call from an unknown number at 6.59 am. The man said, ‘Tumhare poore pariwar ko khatam kar doonga.’ I panicked. After looking up the number, the name appeared as Maucha. Post that, I kept trying that number several times, but it was either unavailable or switched off. I never got a call from the same number again, but a couple of other phone calls disturbed me.”

Disturbed by the threatening calls, he decided to approach the police. “I asked my manager to lodge a complaint at the Amboli Police Station. But abhi tak kuch pata nahin chal paaya hai,” he shared.

The second call came from another number on July 17, when Udit was shooting for a singing reality show ('Superstar Singer') with his old-time contemporaries Kumar Sanu and Alka Yagnik.

He explained, “I was getting ready for the shoot in my vanity van, when I got a call from an unknown number. I responded, but there was silence on the other side. After I prodded the person to talk, he started using cuss words and said, ‘Extortion money chahiye. Main Ravi Pujari (gangster) hoon.’ I felt it was fake because Ravi Pujari is in jail. I was upset even before the shoot started and that stayed with me throughout the shoot."

The third person to cause him trouble is a man called Hussain Ali, who Udit has known for a few years now. “He is from

Darbhanga

(Bihar), and I knew this man as an acquaintance. He would call me on and off and I would help him whenever he was in need. His calls became frequent in the last two months. When my manager asked him to stop calling, as that would disturb us, he sent a few threatening texts using inappropriate language,” says the singer.

Meanwhile, the police have increased patrolling near his residence. These incidents have been stressful for the singer, but he says that he is not scared. “Sirf yeh bura lagta hai ki jab humne kisi ka kuch bigaada nahin, to aisa kyun ho raha hai. I didn’t share anything about these calls with my family, as I didn’t want them to be worried,” he says, adding that the Amboli police station has further transferred the case to the anti-extortion cell (AEC) of the Mumbai crime branch.