Body found hanging at Nahargarh Fort: Is it a threat to those protesting Padmavati?
Things get murkier still with the latest plot twist in the Padmavati controversy. On the morning of November 24, Jaipur police found the body of a man hanging off the parapet of Nahargarh Fort. According to reports, the words "Padmavati, hum sirf putle nahi latkate (Padmavati, we hang not just effigies)" and "Padmavati ka virodh (Protest against Padmavati)" were found written on stones next to the body.
While Rajput Karni Sena president Mahipal Singh Makrana, the man who had threatened to chop off actress Deepika Padukone’s nose, said, "This could be a suicide. This is not our way of protest. We condemn this," there was little to doubt that this incident was yet another intimidation tactic; possibly the handiwork of a fundamentalist enraged at the supposedly distasteful portrayal of Rani Padmini in the yet-to-be-released Sanjay Leela Bhansali film.
But is it that simple. A new India Today report points towards something else altogether – the messages beside the corpse (and there are more than the two as initially reported) are addressed not to the makers of Padmavati, but those protesting against the film. There were more than 10 messages scribbled on the stones of the fort's parapet. One read, “Padmavati ka virodh karne walo, hum kile se sirf putlay nahin latkaate (To those opposing Padmavati, we hang not just effigies from forts).”
Another read, “Chetan Tantrik maara gaya (Chetan Tantrik has been killed).” The police identified the deceased as Chetan Kumar, a 23-year-old from Jaipur, after they found his Aadhaar card. According to the police, he was "strangled" using a plastic wire.
Plot thickens. The next few messages discovered on the parapet are more inflammatory. One read, “Har kafir ka yah haal hoga (Each infidel will meet this fate)”. Another, “Hum putlay nahin latkaate / Allah ke bande, hum mein hai dum (We don't hang effigies. We are Allah's men, we are powerful).” And finally, perhaps the most provocative message so far, read, “Jo kaafir ko maarega, Allah ko pyaara hoga (It can mean: Whoever kills an infidel will be dear to Allah. Can mean, because 'allah ko pyara hona' can have another meaning: die)”.
Are these messages, then, not for the likes of Sanjay Leela Bhansali or Deepika Padukone or Ranveer Singh or those who support creative freedom and civil liberties? The messages, it would seem, are meant for members of Rajput Karni Sena, BJP and Rajput protesters in general?
The way the messages are written, there is little left to imagination who is at the receiving end here.
But one also has to consider this: what if this is misdirection – an attempt to change the narrative?
So far, it is the members of Rajput Karni Sena and BJP who have behaved in an aggressive manner. The sudden introduction of a body with threats to these right-wing Hindu groups looks not only out of place, but oddly suspicious. This seems to be an attempt to foment communal division, written deliberately so, to sound like it is a message from Muslims.
It is possible that the body is unrelated to the controversy. After all, had it not been for the messages scrawled all across the parapet, one would have never thought of connecting this death to Padmavati.
Whatever be the case, it is imperative that the Vasundhara Raje-led government prioritise its focus on the crime, instead of the film and its contents.