Munawar Faruqui Beats Payal Rohatgi To Win Kangana Ranaut's 'Lock Upp'

Comedian Munawar Faruqui has won the show, ‘Lock Upp’,  after striving to get basic requirements for over 70 days. Faruqui was freed from filmmaker Ekta Kapoor and actress Kangana Ranaut's 'Lock Upp' with a Rs 20 lakh check and a brand new car. He was crowned the winner of the program, which also starred Payal Rohatgi, Anjali Arora, Azma Fallah, and Shivam Sharma, who are regulars on famous reality shows.

Unlike other reality programs, the winner of ‘Lock Upp’ was determined not just by popular vote, which went to Faruqui, but also by the host, Ranaut. The winner was ultimately selected by her mark of approval. The first and second runners-up were Rohatgi and Arora, with whom Faruqui had become fairly close on the gritty reality program.

Faruqui arrived on the show fresh off his controversy. Last year, he was put in jail for a month for allegedly insulting Hindu gods and goddesses during one of his shows, as per reports on Indian Express. Many of his shows were cancelled when he was freed on bail. The comedian later stated in a statement that he was imprisoned for a joke he never uttered. He also hinted at wanting to end his comic career. "Nafrat jeet gayi, artist haar gaya (sic)," Faruqui had posted back then. “I'm finished, bye. Injustice” he had added. 

Faruqui, who was having his shows cancelled before joining 'Lock Upp,' drew a lot of sympathy and public goodwill by portraying himself as a boy from a Dongri chawl who had experienced poverty, his mother's suicide, his marriage breaking up, and also the fact that he was allegedly sexually abused as a child. 

Ranaut and Faruqui had had quite a number of heated debates on his political ideas and life ideologies during the initial days of the show. But it seems their disagreements definitely did not prevent the show's celebrity presenter from crowning him the winner.