Mumbai stand-up comedian Yash Bharadwaj has finally returned to India after spending 47 days in a Dubai jail for posting a simple video on social media. After returning home on May 5, she recently gave a detailed account of the most difficult and painful experience of her life through several posts on Instagram.
The crisis started in March this year around a hilarious video made in Dubai about wrong directions on Google Maps. He originally created humorous sketches based on GPS outages caused by geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran in the Middle East.
On March 19, while preparing for a comedy show in Dubai, Yash was ordered to appear at the Dubai Police headquarters on an urgent basis.
According to the comedian, although he thought the video was a light joke, the Dubai administration considered it a potential threat to national security.
“There was a completely innocent and normal reel video but the authorities did not take it lightly,” Bharadwaj said. Considered a threat to national security, I was arrested and detained and spent 47 long days in a detention center.
Yash says that these unexpected legal complications and extreme uncertainty have caused severe physical and emotional stress on him and his entire family. He was held for nearly seven weeks in a central detention center in Dubai, where the environment was extremely unsanitary, overcrowded and uncontrolled. He was finally sent back to India on May 5.
After returning to Mumbai, Yash has already resumed acting on stage. The overwhelming support of co-comedians and the audience helped him get back to normal quickly.
However, after the incident, he planned to move permanently to Bangalore, where his career took off. While he is optimistic about all the new work, Yash feels that this experience will remind him for the rest of his life how even a small joke on a touchy geopolitical issue can change the course of his life.
There is no official statement from Dubai authorities in this incident.