Bollywood superstar Deepika Padukone was today seen iin JNU in Delhi participating in a protest against the Sunday violence in the university, ahead of the release of her latest movie Chhapaak. She joined the protests to show solidarity with students and teachers of Jawaharlal Nehru University who were attacked by masked hooligans on January 5.
.@deepikapadukone visited JNU to show solidarity with the students after Sunday’s attack. https://t.co/GRnMLGBTr3
— India Today (@IndiaToday) January 7, 2020
Deepika Padukone joined the protests by left-wing students who claim to have been attacked by ABVP, while a large number of ABVP students also attacked by left wing groups who were preventing students from registering for the winter semester. The actress was seen standing behing JNU Students’ Union president Aishe Ghosh, who has been booked by police for leading a mob that had vandalised the server room of JNU. Aishe was also injured in the attack, the responsibility of which has been claimed by a fringe group named Hindu Rashtra Dal.
The violence in JNU campus on Sunday evening was the culmination of several days of conflict between left-wing groups and students wanting to continue study. The left-wing groups are calling for a boycott of class protesting against fee hike, and as part of that they had physically prevented students from registering for the next semester. They also had damaged the server room and disabled internet services in the campus, preventing students from registering online. A large group of left-wing students had assaulted students wanting to register and ABVP members, and as a result, several ABVP leaders in JNU were admitted at AIIMS. Later in the evening, left-wing students came under the attack of masked goons, in which the JNUSU president was also injured. Although the students had blamed ABVP for the attacks, they had denied it, and today Hindu Rashtra Dal leader Pinky Chaudhary said his outfit had carried the attacks, alleging that the university has become a hotbed of anti-national activities.
Although several personalities from the Hindi film industry in Bollywood had joined the protests yesterday in Mumbai against the JNU violence, Deepika Padukone is the first A-lister star to join, that too in JNU campus. Her upcoming movie Chhapaak, which also produced by her and directed by Meghna Gulzar, is scheduled to be released on 10 January. Deepika plays the role of an acid attack victim in the movie, which is based on the real story of an acid attack victim. Her last movie was Padmaavat released in 2018, which was subject of a massive controversy, and was banned in few states.
