The beloved Indian crime show CID is in the eye of a storm—again. Just days after the dramatic on-screen death of iconic character ACP Pradyuman, played by Shivaji Satam, a fresh controversy has erupted. This time, it involves allegations of copyright infringement. Mumbai-based graffiti artist Mooz Graffiti has accused the makers of CID of using his and other artists’ work in an episode—without permission or credit.
Over the past few days, social media has been buzzing with disappointment and anger over the show’s decision to kill off ACP Pradyuman. The backlash hasn’t died down, and now, the show is back in the news for all the wrong reasons.
According to a report by Hindustan Times, Mooz Graffiti shared a clip on Instagram in which he alleged that CID used graffiti visuals lifted directly from YouTube videos without any proper attribution. He stated that not only his artwork, but also those of other well-known graffiti artists, were used in the show without consent. “CID showing our artworks in their recent episode ‘The Aftermath’ where the graffiti seems to be taken from YouTube videos! That’s quite funny!!” he wrote in his caption.
The episode in question, titled The Aftermath, picks up from where ACP Pradyuman’s character dies and features Daya (Dayanand Shetty) and Abhijeet (Aditya Srivastava) investigating a string of mysterious graffiti incidents across Mumbai. These include street art referencing pop culture figures like Jared Leto’s Joker and Marvel’s Incredible Hulk. As the team investigates, they uncover that the acts were orchestrated by a character named Barbosa (played by Tigmanshu Dhulia), who is revealed to be the mastermind behind the bombing that killed ACP Pradyuman.
Mooz’s video addressing the issue started with a scene from CID and then switched to him speaking directly to the camera. In the video, he said (in Hindi), “Initially, I was excited because we have all watched CID since childhood and getting your artwork featured in it is a good thing. But it’s not just me, Zake, Elmart and a lot of other people’s artwork has been featured here. But the funny part is that instead of going out on the street and shooting the artwork or hiring a person to show the vandalism, you chose to take it from a YouTube video. I found that funny.”
He also captioned his video post, “Sala ye Barbosa ne credit le liya! (Barboasa took all the credit) Woke up to this!”
While Mooz’s tone might have been humorous, the issue he raised is serious—unauthorized use of artistic content without credit amounts to copyright infringement. His disappointment reflects a growing frustration among independent artists who often find their work being used by big productions without proper acknowledgment.
Interestingly, soon after Mooz’s post gained traction online, he deleted it from his Instagram account. It remains unclear whether this was due to legal pressure, a takedown notice, or personal reasons. As of now, there has been no official response from the makers of CID regarding the artist’s allegations.
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