As controversy surrounding ‘Padmavati’ intensifies, members of the Sri Rajput Karni Sena, an organisation of the Rajput community on Tuesday vandalised a cinema hall in Kota, Rajasthan for showing the film’s trailer.
Armed with sticks and rods, the group of men went on a rampage as they broke glass windows and doors of the cinema hall in Akash Mall and raised slogans against the filmmakers.
Wearing saffron bands on their foreheads, one of the agitators picked up a queue stand and threw it at the glass wall of the ticket counter of the theatre as the panicked staffers ran for cover. The group also pelted stones at the hall.
Directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, ‘Padmavati’ has been in the eye of the storm ever since reports alleged that historical facts have been distorted in the film to defame Mewar Queen Padmavati.
While the Karni Sena and the Sarv Brahmin Mahasabha, a Brahmin community organization have demanded that Bhansali’s team should screen the movie for historians and intellectuals before releasing, the director has remained silent.
As the film is slated to hit the screens on December 1, the controversy around it is only intensifying with both the sides refusing to budge.
In January, activists of Sri Rajput Karni Sena had protested, manhandled and misbehaved with the crew of “Padmavati”, claiming Bhansali was distorting historical facts in the movie.
Meanwhile, film distributors in Rajasthan are wary of releasing the film which tells the tale of Rani Padmavati – the legendary Mewar queen, her husband Maharawal Ratan Singh- a Rajput ruler and Alauddin Khilji – an ambitious and obsessive invader.
There are around 300 screens in Rajasthan and it will be a loss of around Rs 5 crore if the film is not released in the state, sources said.
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