Shirish Kunder made his successful debut in the short film world by directing a film named 'Kriti' starring Manoj Bajpayee, Radhika Apte and Neha Sharma in the lead role. The film released on Youtube on June 22, 2016 and has been viewed by 2.5 million viewers, but now it has been removed from the website after the director was challenged over copyright.

Nepali filmmaker Aneel Neupane confirmed the news by tweeting, "Those who seek Kriti will find it removed. @ShirishKunder #KritiStoleBOB Thank you all for the immense support."

For the uninitiated, it all started when Shirish had sent Mr Neupane a legal notice demanding an "unconditional written apology" and has asked him to refrain from making any oral or written comments on 'Kriti.' He also suggested that it was Mr Neupane, who was guilty of plagiarism and demanded that BOB be taken offline immediately.

Mr Neupane claimed that Shirish "practically stole the plot" of his short film BOB. He wrote on his Facebook wall: "Initially, I thought maybe the first few frames, the setting and characters resembled BOB. I thought it was just a co-incidence. I was actually excited to watch a short film starring Mr Manoj Bajpayee (A great actor whom I admire a lot!) and Neha Sharma (whom I've had a HUGE crush on ever since I saw her in the movie Crook). As the movie progressed, I was shocked to find so much similarities."

Shirish however denied the allegations and said, that these "allegations are technically, factually and logically baseless. That short film (Bob) was released on May 12 whereas we shot Kriti in February, after which it was in post-production. How is it even possible to 'lift' the idea, unless I was time travelling."