Rahat Fateh Ali Khan apologises, takes responsibility over video showing him assaulting ‘student’ amid online outrage

Islamabad: Iconic Pakistani playback and Qawwali singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, apologised on Saturday and owned a video circulating online of him beating his student after it sparked online furore at his behaviour.

On Saturday, a video surfacing on social media showed the artist resorting to physical aggression, using shoes and slapping the employee over a missing “bottle”.

Netizens reacted strongly to the singer’s video.

As per Dawn, an apologetic video was published later, in which the singer justified it as a “personal matter between a teacher and his student” and also identified him as Naveed Hasnain as the person being punished in the video.

In the same video, Hasnain, who is seen standing next to his master said, the “bottle” is responsible for the controversy in the original video and it “contained water sanctified by a pir,” adding, “he had misplaced the bottle and forgotten about it.”

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan is less embarrassed of beating up his student than of drinking alcohol. pic.twitter.com/prfaL4a452

— Hamza Azhar Salam (@HamzaAzhrSalam) January 27, 2024

“He is my father and my teacher. He loves us a lot too. Whoever has done this act [of leaking the video] is blackmailing to defame my teacher,” he added.

Rahat also added that he had asked forgiveness from Hasnain the next instant, Dawn reported.

The singer is Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s nephew and grandson. He also received the Sitara-i-Imtiaz.

In 2019, Oxford University gave him an honorary degree. The institution identified the artist as a ‘Pakistani vocalist, mostly of Qawwali,’ and credited him with more than 50 albums, over one billion views online, more than 50 title tracks of television serials, and over 100 film songs in both Hollywood and Bollywood.