The Deepika Padukone starrer Chhapaak has yet again found itself surrounded in controversy. Aparna Bhat, the lawyer who represented the acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal, on whose life the movie is based on, has moved Delhi’s Patiala House Court seeking for a stay on the release of the movie.
Lawyer Aparna Bhatt files plea in Delhi’s Patiala House Court seeking stay on film #Chhapaak. Bhatt in her plea has claimed that she was the lawyer for acid attack victim Laxmi for many years and yet she has not been given credit in the film. pic.twitter.com/RuTkzYJnJg
— ANI (@ANI) January 9, 2020
Bhatt in her plea has said that while she was the lawyer who represented Laxmi in her arduous legal fight, she has been given no credit in the movie Chhapaak.
Late last night, Aparna Bhat took to Twitter to express her anguish at being left out of the movie despite her fight for Laxmi’s rights at the time.
In her Facebook post, she says that she is never the one to demand attention for her work, but she is deeply disturbed by the turn of events. She took to Facebook to express her angst after she watched the movie Chhapaak, she said. She said she represented Laxmi in her criminal trial and that she is set to take legal action to ‘protect her identity’ and ‘preserve her integrity’.
As soon as Aparna Bhat posted this on Facebook, she received overwhelming support from several quarters. In response, Aparna Bhat wrote another Facebook post thanking everyone for their wishes.
On Facebook, Aparna Bhat wrote that she was thankful to all those who endorsed her contribution and challenged team Chhapaak in failing to even say ‘Thank you’. Further, she said that she cannot match the powers of ‘these might producers of Bollywood’ but keeping quiet will only endorse injustice.
Earlier, on 11th December, Aparna Bhat had infact taken to Facebook to celebrate the movie the making of the film Chhapaak. She said that she still remembers how it took her 8 years to get the law changed, the minimum compensation increased, ensuring free treatment at private hospitals and finally, regulating acid sale. She then celebrated the story now being told in Bollywood. However, after watching the movie, she seems to have changed her opinion.
It is pertinent to note here that the producer of the movie Chhapaak is Deepika Padukone herself who had landed herself in trouble just a couple of days ago with her PR stunt in JNU.
On January 7th, three days prior to release of her film Chhapaak, Deepika Padukone had decided to show ‘solidarity’ with students who were on the receiving end of violence by masked goons on JNU campus. The leftist goons had attacked students who were registering for winter semester and took over the server room and made it dysfunctional. JNUSU President Aishe Ghosh, who was found leading a mob on Sunday, 5th January, is named in an FIR for vandalism by JNU administration.
Read: Deepika Padukone’s PR stunt at JNU gets endorsement from Pakistan. Here is how it unfolded
Padukone, to show her solidarity with the students, chose to meet Ghosh and her friends while the ones who were the victims during the registration process were ignored. Which is fine, as everyone is a hypocrite at the end of it.
However, Padukone’s visit to JNU as show of solidarity was anything but organic. It was a PR stunt for her film promotion as was revealed after Deepika’s pictures from JNU were shared to various media houses by a PR firm ‘Spice PR’. This PR stunt by Deepika Padukone for her movie Chhapaak was also hailed by terrorist nation Pakistan.
