Don't release Padmavati in Pune: Girish Bapat tells Devendra Fadnavis, cops

The Padmavati saga has now reached Pune. On Monday, the Rajput community from the Pimpri Chinchwad area organized a march to protest the movie and also handed over a letter to Pune's guardian minister Girish Bapat. Addressing the protesters, the minister said he has written to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Pune's top cops to stop the movie from being released in the city. The film, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, which stars Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor, has garnered a wave of protests across the country.

Bapat said at the march, "To avoid chaos in Pune, I have written to the Pune city police chief as well as the Pune rural police superintendent to stop the film from being shown in theaters. The movie has distorted history and the citizens are not accepting it. Unfortunately, the judiciary is also not trying to interfere in it, due to which we have also written to the chief minister, appealing the government to take the grievances of citizens [seriously] and remove such [objectionable] segments from the movie. A few members of the Rajput community have also planned to meet the CM in this regard."

"The right to portray history in the film has been misused and misinterpreted, and queen Padmini has been shown in a distorted manner," said Bapat. mid-day tried to reach out to Bapat after the protest, but he remained unavailable for comment. Meanwhile, joint commissioner of police (Law and Order) Ravindra Kadam said, "I'm unaware of the letters, but like we'd taken adequate measures for the Marathi movie Dashakriya, we would be taking precautions if this film is shown in Pune."