JAIPUR: A day after Sanjay Leela Bhansali was assaulted here on the sets of his upcoming period drama Padmawati, the award-winning director suspended the movie’s shooting and decided to return to Mumbai, sources said on Saturday.

Bhansali was roughed up by members of a Rajput outfit at the city’s historic Jaigarh Fort on Friday.

The mob comprising Karni Sena members alleged that Rajasthan’s history was being distorted in the movie the director was filming.

Scores of Sena protesters breached private security arrangements and stormed the fort at 12.30pm, raising slogans against Bhansali and the movie. They then attempted to stop the shoot by vandalising the movie set.

While the film crew and the producer’s private guards tried to stop the protesters, one of them pulled Bhansali by the hair and slapped him.

“Bhansali’s private security guards formed a ring around him in order to safely escort him out of the chaos.

The crew dialled the police helpline number and the Amber police reached the spot,” a police official said.

“The movie depicts love scenes between Rani Padmini and Alauddin Khilji. This is an outrageous distortion of Rajasthan’s history as the Rani-ji immolated herself along with the other women of the fort when they heard that Khilji was marching ahead to take over the fort,” Karni Sena state president Mahipal Makrana said.

“We will not allow anyone to peddle lies and cheat with the honour and dignity of idols at any cost [sic],” he added.

Police set up a meeting between Bhansali and the Karni Sena leaders after the incident. “Bhansali said the Sena’s allegations were unfounded as the movie did not depict any such scene between the two. We asked Bhansali if he would like to file an FIR, but he refused,” said a senior official who attended the meeting.

The film’s team issued a clarification that there would be no romantic scene between the characters of Padmawati and Alauddin Khilji, played by Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh.

By arrangement with the Times of India

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2017