King Charles’ charity severs connections with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan after viral violent outburst
The British Asian Trust, founded by King Charles III, has stated that it will no longer be associated with Rahat Fateh Ali Khan after a covertly recorded video of him beating an individual he later described as his student went viral on social media.
A spokesperson for the trust told Geo News that they had decided to cut ties with the singer after reviewing the video.
According to the spokesperson: “The British Asian Trust has a strict policy towards abusive behaviour and has ceased any association with Mr Khan. We strongly condemn any form of violence whatever the circumstances.
“We take all accusations of abuse seriously and we will look into this urgently,” the trust said in a statement issued over the weekend.
Khan was named an ambassador for the British Asian Trust in 2017, with then Prince Charles announcing his appointment.
The viral video, which appeared to be taken secretly, showed Khan slapping and punching a man — whom he later claimed was his student — while demanding to know the location of his “bottle”. At one point, Khan yanked him by the hair and tossed him to the ground in anger, violently attacking him.
A day after the video was posted, the singer claimed that the bottle in question contained water blessed by a pir, or spiritual leader and that the incident was solely between him and his student.
Identifying the student and his father, Khan, in a series of Instagram videos, said, “The relationship between a teacher and student is such that when he does well, we give him that much love and when he does wrong, we punish him”.
The student, Naveed Hasnain said the bottle contained water blessed by a spiritual leader and that he had forgotten where he put it at the time. “God only knows how much love he [Khan] shows us,” he said, calling the video an attempt to blackmail and defame his teacher.
He denied that the incident was an incident of abuse. Khan claimed that he asked for Hasnain’s forgiveness then and there after beating him up. The singer, however, did not apologise to Hasnain on video.
