Over 100 members of a local outfit on Saturday damaged vehicles and property at a cinema hall in Jaipur to protest alleged "misrepresentation" of Rajputs in Salman Khan- starrer 'Veer', after which 22 of them were arrested.
"The protestors damaged a few vehicles and the glass door of a cinema hall in Jhotwara area in the morning hours. After that they reached another cinema hall in Vaishali Nagar where police controlled them and arrested some of them," Superintendent of Police, Jaipur South, Jose Mohan said. He said 22 activists, including their leader, have been arrested and the situation is now under control.
A representative of the Sree Rajpur Karni Sena, which staged the protest, said several scenes and dialogues in the movie, directed by Anil Sharma of the 'Gadar' fame, are "anti-Rajput" and they demand their removal.
"The Rajputs have been represented in a wrong way. Either these parts should be removed or the screening of the movie stopped altogether," he demanded. Their protest centres around the fact that in the film the Rajput community has been portrayed as weaker and the Pindaris have been shown to have abducted girls from the former community.
The protest was staged at around 11.30 am, just before the show was to start, sources said. The members of the outfit yesterday submitted a memorandum to the District Collector demanding a ban on screening of the film.
"A delegation met me yesterday and submitted their representation citing the ground of misrepresentation of the Rajput caste," Collector Kuldeep Ranka said. Veer is already in trouble after an author filed a lawsuit in the Delhi High Court seeking a stay on its screening, alleging that it has illegally lifted some concepts from his book. PTI
