After Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone visited the Jawaharlal NehruUniversity (JNU), calls to boycott her upcoming movie Chhapaak gainedmomentum on microblogging platform Twitter.
A faction of people lauded the actor¡¯s brave act of standing insolidarity with the students of JNU who were attacked by masked goons onJanuary 5. JNU has been embroiled in chaos and protests for the past two days.Anurag Kashyap, Swara Bhaskar, Konkana Sen Sharma, Vishal Bharadwaj, JavedAkhtar and many other from the cinema fraternity have been vocally supportiveof the JNU, Jamia and AMU students. They have also made their stance on thecontentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) very clear.
At a time when questions were raised about Bollywood top actors for not speakingup against the atrocities on students and those protesting against CAA, Deepika¡¯svisit to JNU is nothing short of courageous.
Despite the massive praise the actor garnered from activists, studentsand celebrities alike, many trolls and IT cell members called for Chhapaakboycott. She was also targeted for supporting the fictitious ¡°tukde-tukde gang¡±by people from the right wing.
#BoycottChapak was one of the top trends on twitter in India, with closeto 421,000 tweets by the hashtag.
In a tweet by Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair, many IT Cell memberswere seen booking and cancelling the exact same ticket for Chhapaak. Many trollaccounts tweeted that they have cancelled their tickets for Chhapaak and willinstead watch Ajay Devgn¡¯s Tanhaji ¨C The Unsung Warrior. Both the movies aredue to release on Friday, January 10.
Interesting, the accounts tweeting about cancelling tickets booked andcancelled the same tickets with bookings of the same seat.
Many have called to make Chhapaak a ¡°disaster at box office¡±.
¡°I cancelled my ticket¡ And Please do cancel your ticket or don¡¯t book it¡Let¡¯s teach them a lesson,¡± a user wrote, with a screenshot of the ticket.