A video of Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies sharing striking similarities with scenes from a 2019 Arabic film, Burqa City, is doing the rounds on social media, sparking debates over alleged plagiarism in the Aamir Khan-backed film that was India’s official entry for the Oscars.

Directed by Fabrice Bracq, Burqa City is a 20-minute short film set in a Middle Eastern city, where women are compelled to cover themselves with burqas. It follows a young man who marries a woman wearing a burqa and when he comes home, he discovers that he has brought home the wrong woman.

Netizens have pointed out the similarities between Burqa City and Laapataa Ladies in terms of plot and execution as well.

“Kiran Rao made Laapataa Ladies, with the same theme, replacing burqas with ghoonghats. The film carried the same message about patriarchy, societal norms, and women's identity. Even the Ravi Kishan police station scene seems heavily inspired,” wrote an X user, sharing scenes from Burqa City.

The Burqa City sequence looks similar to Laapataa Ladies sequence featuring Sparsh Shrivastava’s Deepak, Nitanshi Goel’s Phool and Ravi Kishan’s Shyam Manohar in a police station.

“Similar theme....a man marries a woman and his wife gets exchanged and he brings home a different woman. The only thing where it differs is that Burqa was replaced with Ghoonghat.... otherwise the plot is the same. Kiran Rao should tell us what was her problem with Burqa....why couldn't she make this movie with Burqa as the main theme instead of Ghoonghat?,” another X user pointed it out.

A netizen said that Kiran Rao “shamelessly” copied from Burqa City. “This is how Kiran Rao, ex-wife of Aamir Khan, turned everything bad about Burqa into everything wrong with Ghunghat,” he tweeted.

Previously, filmmaker Anant Mahadevan had claimed that Laapataa Ladies drew inspiration from his 1999 film Ghunghat Ke Pat Khol. “Amused and humbled to find that it (Ghunghat Ke Pat Khol) has inspired a similar film this year,” he wrote in an Instagram post, alluding to the Kiran Rao directorial.

“Bollywood is so cooked, they send copy-paste movies to the Oscars with zero shame. (Laapataa Ladies and Gully Boy is an example),” wrote a user.

Directed by Kiran Rao and produced by Aamir Khan Productions, Kindling Pictures, and Jio Studios, Laapataa Ladies is a satirical take on patriarchy in rural India. Based on a story by Biplab Goswami, with a screenplay and dialogues by Sneha Desai and additional dialogues by Divyanidhi Sharma, the film follows two brides, Phool and Jaya, who are mistakenly swapped during a train journey.

Laapataa Ladies premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival before its release in Indian theaters on March 1, 2024. The film was India’s official entry in the best international feature film category at the 97th Academy Awards, but did not make it to the shortlist. Sandhya Suri’s Hindi film Santosh, representing the UK, had advanced to the next round.

At the IIFA awards last month, Laapataa Ladies swept major categories including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor.