Amid the promotion of her upcoming movie "Chhapak", the Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone visited the JNU campus on 7th December to express solidarity with students who had been attacked during the violence on 5th January in the JNU campus.  A day after her visit, a discussion erupted on social media over the name antagonist in the movie.

Deepika Padukone's Chhapak is based on the life of acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal, who was disfigured for life in 2005 when she refused to marry the main culprit 'Nadeem Khan'. Social media users started claiming that the religion of the antagonist has been changed in the movie, which reflects the hypocrisy of Bollywood. 

A twitter page named Friends of RSS shared a post saying, "If Acid attacker name was Nadeem Khan then the same name should have been used in film as well. If the film is based on true incidents then have courage to keep same name as well. Bollywood brazenly displays its bigotry against Hindus in movie."

Till the time of writing this article, the tweet has been more than 300 times.

Another Twitter user named Sidhinath Chaudhary also shared the post claiming the same. 

This tweet has also been shared more than 500 times. 

Ahead of the release of the film, some elements vandalised Laxmi Agarwal’s Wikipedia page and changed the name of the culprit from Naeem Khan to ‘Rajesh’.

The truth behind the claim

After Deepika's visit at JNU, an article was published by Swaragyamag.com titled, "The Ways Of Bollywood: In Deepika Padukone-Starer Chhapaak, Acid Attacker Naeem Khan Becomes ‘Rajesh’."  Following this, a number of other people on social media started claiming the same.

However, in the movie, the name of the protagonist, Laxmi is ‘Malti’ Agarwal and Nadeem become ‘Babboo’ aka ‘Bashir Khan’. Moreover, Rajesh is the name of Malti’s boyfriend.

Deepika's visit to JNU led to backlash also made her grab attention where many appreciated her ‘silent solidarity’ but others criticized her for “supporting the Leftists” and said it was a promotional stunt ahead of the release. Due to the presence of Chappak's lead actress at JNU, the movie faced backlash in the wake of high-voltage drama over violence at the university/. Twitterati called for #Boycott Chhapaak, however, some people supported the movie used #ISupportDeepika in their posts. 

In India, more than 300 attacks are reported each year, though human rights groups say the count probably exceeds 1,000. The main culprits are often men who want to punish women for ending a relationship or to break the spirit of the women. Experts say the aim is not to kill, but to maim and embarrass.