Sanjay Leela Bhansali didn’t even file a police complaint to report about the assault incident.
The assault on filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali by activists of Rajput organisation Karni Sena was a ploy to garner publicity for his latest film Padmavati starring Shahid Kapoor, Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone. Even though, the movie is slated to release in November 2017 but filmmakers have already started planting stories to attract people’s attention. Sanjay Leela Bhansali didn’t even file a police complaint to report about the incident. However, the reports about attack on the director have gone viral on social media inviting the ire of netizens. Many celebrities like Priyanka Chopra, Rishi Kapoor, Karan Johar, Hrithik Roshan, Sonam Kapoor, Huma Qureshi, Anushka Sharma took to social media to condemn the incident. Since BJP government is ruling in the centre and Rajasthan and even an official appointed by them heads the censor board they could have easily edited inappropriate content of the film.
“PR machinery works overtime to ensure that the movie remains in limelight during shooting and also create some controversy few weeks ahead of the film’s release to garner maximum eyeballs. This is a strategy adopted by filmmakers to market their movies and engage viewers,” said a film critic on the condition of anonymity.
“Even photos and scenes of the films are leaked on social media to attract netizens as they start talking about it. Sometimes filmmakers deliberately leak the scene of a film and later allege that it was leaked by outsiders,” he added.
Livelihood of youth belonging to Karni Sena depends on film so why should they attack him. The aim of the protesters was not to safeguard history, it was to make an example of Bhansali and make headlines.
On Friday, the activists of a Rajput organisation, Karni Sena, entered the Jaigarh Fort and assaulted Bhansali, slapped him and tore up his shirt. They even misbehaved with the crew and criticised the National Award-winning director for ‘distorting’ history in the film about the medieval-era Delhi ruler Alauddin Khilji, who fell in love with Rajput queen Padmavati.
What’s appalling is the fact that the people who protested created a ruckus and harmed people for a movie that hasn’t even been released. “The film is presenting wrong facts about Padmavati. Our basic protest is about distortion of historic facts which will not be tolerated,” Vikram Singh, a Karni Sena activist said.
Deepika Padukone took to Twitter to share, “As Padmavati I can assure you that there is absolutely no distortion of history. Our only endeavour is & has always been to share with the world the story of this courageous & powerful woman in the purest form there is.”
“Sanjay Leela Bhansali has shot two films in Jaipur and despite his love for Rajasthan, for the safety of his crew, we have decided to leave the city post the shocking incident where miscreants damaged property and misbehaved with the crew on the shoot of ‘Padmavati’,” said an official statement issued on behalf of Bhansali.
“We clarify that there is no dream sequence or any objectionable scene between Rani Padmavati and Alauddin Khilji. We have been carefully researching and making the film… The attack on the shoot and crew was uncalled for and was extremely damaging to the image of the beautiful city of Jaipur,” the statement added.
