Investigations by the Maharashtra Police’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) into the recent Nallasopara arms haul are taking a bizarre turn with the cops inadvertently coming to know that the accused had also targeted Bollywood! If police sources are to be believed, then the accused who claim to belong to right wing Hindutva fringe groups are among the people who allegedly set on fire filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s sets of Padmaavat in Kolhapur last year.
The responsibility for this arson, all the while, had been proudly claimed by the casteist Rajput group Karni Sena which attacked Bhansali for his depiction of Rani Padmavati in the Bollywood film whom they have revered for centuries. Now, with the nine Nallasopara accused turning out to be gau rakshaks and sympathisers of the radical Hindu group Sanatan Sanstha, the police are wondering who really burned down Bhansali’s sets in Kolhapur.
According to sources, these nine accused are also believed to have told the ATS that they intended to target several eminent personalities in Mumbai. And among them was this big Bollywood filmmaker known to stir up passions with his epic period films and an actress known for her outspoken views on social media who reportedly had her Twitter account shut down recently.
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It is believed the accused had plans to first scare the Bollywood filmmaker into oblivion by firing at his car. Then, if he had hadn’t learned a lesson, they might have eliminated him. Ditto for the actress. The filmmaker, however, is already under threat and has police protection. It is not known if the ATS will take the Nallasopara accuseds’ confessions seriously and offer Bollywood celebs security or whether they will restrict this investigation just to the arms haul.
Meanwhile, in an unrelated disclosure, the controversial Sanatan Sanstha has denied all links with the nine Nallasopara accused who are also said to be involved in the murders of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar and journalist activist Gauri Lankesh. A spokesperson for the right wing organisation said those held in the arms haul case were from other pro-Hindutva organisations. The Sanatan Sanstha had not associated itself with the agitation against Padmaavat last year. So there is no question of it now claiming to be responsible for burning down the film’s sets in Kolhapur. The mystery is, who did it then?
