Salman Khan has aired his opinion on political and social issues in the past and courted controversies in the process. The last time he expressed his opinion was during the raging debate on the growing religious intolerance several years ago. However, the adverse reaction by the right-wing to his opinion on religious intolerance made him perform a U-turn and apologise for his social media posts. But the Bollywood megastar, now the host of Bigg Boss 13, on Saturday night, minced no words when he sent a chilling observation on India descending into jungle raj.
Salman was in conversation with his former co-star Rani Mukerji, who had joined him on the reality show to promote her upcoming film Mardaani 2. Both were joking about each other’s characters as police officers in their upcoming films. Dabangg 3 is scheduled for a release later this month with Salman playing the character of a police officer. As Rani joked how her character Mardaani 2 was senior to Chulbul Pandey in Dabangg, Salman began to tease her saying that he was still stuck with ‘two stars.’
Salman soon became serious and changed the topic to talk about the recent gang-rapes and murders of two girls in Hyderabad and Unnao. He told Rani, “Not just in films, in real life also one should do this. What’s happening right now in our country, the current situation in India. I’ve not seen a worse situation in India than this. And it’s so sad. Watching TV and reading the newspaper evokes such anger.”
Rani interrupted saying that she had been feeling angry since the day Nirbhaya was gang-raped and murdered in Delhi. She said that doing Mardaani had helped her channelise her anger.
Salman blamed the upbringing of men at home who commit gang-rape and murder of women. He said, “The right upbringing starts at home and the wrong upbringing also starts from one’s house.”
Salman’s comments came hours after the Unnao’s gang-rape and murder victim succumbed to her burn injuries at Safdarjung hospital in Delhi. She was burnt by a group of five people namely Shivam Dwivedi, Hari Shankar Trivedi, Raj Kishore, Shubham Trivedi and Umesh Vajpayee as she proceeded towards the railway station to attend a court hearing in her gang-rape case.
The victim was transferred to a hospital in Lucknow before being air-lifted to Delhi’s Safdarjung hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries on Friday night.
The brother of the victim told reporters that his sister wanted to live and see all the accused dead. Her father told a TV channel that all the accused should receive the same fate as those involved in the gang-rape and burning of a veterinary doctor in Hyderabad. The Telangana Police had gunned down all four accused in the gang-rape and murder of the 26-year-old doctor in an encounter after they allegedly tried to escape from the murder scene.