An Indian man living in Sharjah, UAE, has been flooded with unsolicited phone calls from around the world ever since the second season of Netflix’s hit crime thriller Sacred Games released on 15 August.
The reason for the calls is that Kerala native Kunhabdulla CM's mobile number was accidentally shown as fictional gangster Sulaiman Isa's number in the first episode of the new season, Gulf News reported on Monday night 20 August.
“I have been getting incessant calls on my phone for the last three days from India, Pakistan, Nepal, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and around the world. I don’t know what is happening. What’s Sacred Games? A video game? I work from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. I don’t have time for such things,”
"Hearing my phone ring sends shivers down my spine. I want to cancel my number. I want this problem to go away," Kunhabdulla added.
Kunhabdulla, 37, works for a local oil company and has never heard of the blockbuster web series on Netflix starring Bollywood stars Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
"I got more than 30 calls (on Sunday) and it's draining my battery. In the last one hour, I got five calls asking for someone called Isa... Who is Isa? I don't have anything to do with him," he told Gulf News.
Kunhabdulla's number was displayed in a scene where an undercover agent hands a note to Ganesh Gaitonde (Siddiqui) bearing the number of dreaded gangster Isa. Although the number was not clearly visible on the small piece of paper, the subtitles gave it away.
Shortly after Gulf News' report was published, Netflix and the production company wrote to the newspaper saying that they have removed Kunhabdulla's number.
"We apologise for any inconvenience caused. As soon as we were alerted to the situation, we resolved the issue and removed the phone number from the subtitles," Netflix said in a statement on Monday.
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