Popular international YouTuber named Praneeth Hanumanthu landed in hot water recently after he published a (now-edited) video making extremely inappropriate and sexual comments about a father and his underage daughter. The comments were so wildly indecent that authorities have opened an investigation.
Who is Praneeth Hanumanthu?
Hanumanthu rose to middling online notoriety through roast videos on YouTube, where he grew an audience with his comedic videos. He has more than 170k followers and he’s especially popular with Telugu-speaking people. He hails from Andhra Pradesh, a state in the southern coast of the country.
He recently had a small role in the Telugu movie Harom Hara, where he played a character named Selva Manikayam Bujjulu. His father works for the Indian Administrative Service, the administrative arm of the Indian government.
What did Praneeth Hanumanthu do to get in trouble?
Hanumanthu and his friends shared a YouTube video made by a Telugu family in America. The video in is in a meme format with a very suggestive caption above it: “me: i hate kids so much.” The next line is “also me if I ever get a daughter.”
The father removes the belt from his pants in front of his daughter and holds it for a second like he’s going to hit her with it. Then, the daughter approaches her father and the music changes from ominous to sparkly, and it looks like the father is going to use the belt as a swing for his daughter.
The video is mostly in a foreign language but they speak in English occasionally. “What can be a word that the daughter can say to the dad which is sexual and also father daughter affection?” he asks the group. “Harder daddy?”
They start riffing and Hanumanthu says, “He went from sugar daddy to sweet daddy.” Someone else says, “he went from his mother to his daughter.”
The reaction
The whole incident came to light after Telugu film actor Sai Dharam Tej posted the video on the social media site X.
“This is beyond gruesome, disgusting, and scary. Monsters like these go unnoticed on the very much utilised social platform doing child abuse in the disguise of so-called Fun & Dank. Child Safety is the need of the hour.” Tej said in the post.
He tagged the Deputy Chief Minister and Chief Minister of the state and implored them to do something about the video. He asked that they “take necessary action to curb horrific acts like this in the future.”
It didn’t take long for things to get heated. An Indian actor named Kartikeya took to X to condemn “cracking such demeaning jokes.”
He also said that “constructive criticism and healthy jokes are good,” but “this kind of demeaning thing will only take us back as society. … Lets focus on growing individually and helping others grow. I strongly condemn not just this one particular joke but also all those insensitive and demeaning comments used by anyone.”
When asked about collaborating with Hanumanthu, he said he gave an interview to promote a movie and was frankly “a bit shocked by the questions then but then I [didn’t] want to make a scene there so tried my best to be as [supportive] as possible.”
He was not the only actor to distance himself from the situation. Actor Sudheer Babu said he “disgusted” that he cast Hanumanthu in the movie Harom Hara and offered “sincere apologies” from his entire team while calling Hanumanthu a “pathetic creature.” Ouch.
Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy thanked Tej and responded to his tweet with “Child safety is utmost priority for our Govt. Will look into this incident and take appropriate action.”
The Women Safety Wing of Telangana police also responded, saying that “A case has already been registered with the Telangana’s Cyber Security Bureau and is being actively investigated. We are also constantly in contact with our counterparts in the A.P. police for their cooperation in the matter. Strict action will be taken against the accused.”
Authorities who track cyber crimes, the cyber security bureau of Telangana, announced that it had filed a First Information Report (FIR) against the YouTuber. An FIR is a an official document created by police when they hear about a crime. It’s basically the first step in a police investigation.
How did Praneeth Hanumanthu respond to the allegations?
Hanumanthu responded to the allegations in a tweet where he said he “edited out the problematic part of the video. As for his apology, he said he was “Unconditionally and unambiguously apologetic about the lapse in judgment.” His only purpose, he said, is to make people smile and that this time he “crossed the line between what is dark and what is distasteful.”
A day after his apology, he tweeted again and asked that people “please leave my family out of this.”
He’s been silent ever since and has switched off his phone, per The Hindu. An official from the Telangana Cyber Security Bureau (TGCSB) told the news outlet that it was currently looking to arrest the YouTuber.