Padmavati Row: Alia Bhatt Blames Govt Inaction For Deadly Turn of Events

There were many threats over the last several days. Threats to burn down theatres if they screen Padmavati. Threats to mutilate or kill Deepika Padukone, who played the legendary Rajput queen, and the director Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Even bounties were offered on their heads.

And, on Friday the protests against Bhansali's film took a horrifying turn. The body of a man named Chetan was found hanging in Rajasthan’s Nahargarh Fort, 20 km near Jaipur, with slogans against the movie scrawled on stones nearby. One of the slogans read ‘Padmavati ka virodh (Opposing Padmavati), while another read ‘Hum putle nahi jalate, latkate hain’ (we don’t burn effigies, we kill).

It was not immediately clear if it was a case if murder or suicide, but the deceased was strangled using a plastic wire, the police said.

Mahipal Singh Makrana, a member of the Rajput Karni Sena which has been spearheading the Padmavati protest, said his outfit did not have anything to do with the latest development. “This is not our way of protest. I want to tell people not to resort to such methods,” Makrana said.

His outfit had last week threatened to chop off Deepika Padukone’s nose “just as Soorpanakha’s nose was chopped off”.

Reactions against the horrific incident poured in, and among the first from Bollywood to speak out was Alia Bhatt. "This is what happens when violent threats are allowed to made openly without punishment. What is happening? Shocked," she tweeted.