Old Delhi project dispute
A gossip post claims a young director’s script was allegedly stolen during an Old Delhi film project and later became a hit, while the director has since found success with recent acclaimed films — the item circulated as a blind item and got several hundred viewer impressions. (x.com)
A blind gossip post is circulating a claim that a young filmmaker’s script was taken during an Old Delhi project and later turned into a hit film, but the allegation remains unverified. (x.com) The post did not name the people involved, and the X link provided here did not render readable text through web access. No court filing, police complaint, or on-record statement tied to the allegation surfaced in available reporting reviewed for this thread. (x.com) What can be verified is the director most often linked by online speculation: Karan Tejpal, a 40-year-old filmmaker who told Scroll in May 2025 that he had worked for years as an assistant director before making his feature debut, *Stolen*. (scroll.in) *Stolen* had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August 31, 2023, and The Times of India reported on June 1, 2024 that it was the only Indian film headed to Venice after a three-year gap. The same report said the film had also played Beijing, where it won Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Cinematography. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) The film reached Prime Video on June 4, 2025 after a long struggle for distribution, according to Tejpal’s interview with Scroll. Scroll also reported that directors Anurag Kashyap, Kiran Rao, Nikkhil Advani, and Vikramaditya Motwane backed the release as executive producers. (scroll.in) Tejpal’s recent awards run is also documented. The Indian Express reported on April 5, 2026 that he won Best Director for an OTT film at the Chetak Screen Awards, and that *Stolen* also won Best Script in the same OTT category. (indianexpress.com, indianexpress.com) There is one concrete Old Delhi link in Tejpal’s current career: The Times of India reported in June 2024 that he was writing the screenplay for a Mira Nair film. Mira Nair’s career has a long documented connection to Old Delhi, including her 1979 documentary *Jama Masjid Street Journal*, which covered life around Jama Masjid. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com, news.harvard.edu) Old Delhi has been a recurring film setting for years, from Mira Nair’s early documentary work to later narrative films that used Shahjahanabad’s lanes and markets as a visual anchor. That makes the location plausible context for the rumor, but it does not confirm the accusation in the blind item. (news.harvard.edu, firstpost.com) The bottom line is narrower than the gossip: a blind post made an allegation, and Tejpal’s rise with *Stolen* is verifiable, but the claim of script theft is not established by public evidence reviewed here. Unless one of the parties speaks on the record or a legal record emerges, the dispute remains a rumor attached to a real filmmaker’s documented success. (x.com, scroll.in, indianexpress.com)
