Farhan Saeed Accuses Indian Musician Salim Merchant Of Stealing His Music
Pakistani actor Farhaan Saeed recently exposed Indian singer Salim Merchant for allegedly copying his song Roiyaan’s chorus in Salim’s song Hareya.
Farhan Saeed, who has become a household name in Pakistan’s showbiz for his role as Arsal in Suno Chanda aside from his music career, took to Twitter to call out the Indian singer,
Saeed has put out well-loved songs such as Roiyaan, the latter of which he claims has been copied by Salim Merchant.
Salim Merchant is also a well-known composer, being half of the renowned Salim-Sulaiman duo, known for composing popular songs such as Hareya, which is being under scrutiny.
Farhan not only claimed that Salim copied the chorus of his song, but also criticised the general quality of Hareya as a whole.
Someone just sent me @salim_merchant song HAREYA, which is a total copy of my song ROIYAAN. I wonder they have the audacity to call themselves artists when they steal someone's work. Karna hi hai to pooch ke kuro aur ager poochna nahin hai to at least acha to kuro!#stopstealing
— Farhan Saeed (@farhan_saeed) September 14, 2019
Salim responded in a non-confrontational manner, denying all accusations and claiming that the choruses being similar was only a coincidence and that he and Sulaiman Merchant had a “track record of never plagiarising”.
Farhan I just heard your song. It’s a mere coincidence that the chorus of Haareya is like your song. To be honest I’ve never heard it before. It happens many a times when notes have a natural progression from each other. @Sulaiman & I have a track record of never plagiarising.
— salim merchant (@salim_merchant) September 14, 2019
Farhan, on the other hand, still retained his confrontational tone, pointing out that they shared the same lyricist.
@salim_merchant if you say so! Another co incidence is we have the same lyricist! Anyway good luck !
— Farhan Saeed (@farhan_saeed) September 14, 2019
Salim asked Farhan to check with said lyricist, stating that if he wanted to plagiarise, he would’ve done it earlier in his career. He followed that by stating that he would’ve changed his song to be unique from Roiyaan if he had heard Roiyaan earlier, ending the conversation with an apologetic tone.
Why don’t you check with him!
If i had to copy, I would have done that way long back in my career. I really wish I had heard your song before I made mine. Would have surely made changes to our composition to make it sound different from yours. Anyway, Hope you understand..— salim merchant (@salim_merchant) September 14, 2019
As with most cases like this, we may never know if Salim is being completely honest about it being a coincidence. The lyricist may be the only one who has all the facts, and has not spoken out as yet, so we will just have to wait and see.