NEW DELHI: Veteran actor Shabana Azmi has responded to the recent incident involving newly elected MP from Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, and actress Kangana Ranaut, who was reportedly slapped by a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) constable at Chandigarh airport. Azmi said that security officials should refrain from taking the law into their own hands if not then “none of us can be safe.”
Azmi posted on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) and tweeted, “I have no love lost for Kangana Ranaut. But I can’t find myself joining this chorus of celebrating ‘the slap’. If security personnel start taking law into their hands, none of us can be safe.”
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The slap incident happened when Kangana, who won the Lok Sabha elections from Mandi constituency with a margin of 74,755 votes, was travelling to Delhi on Thursday, June 6.
The incident was captured on mobile footage that swiftly went viral. It depicted Ms. Ranaut being escorted to a check-in counter. Upon her arrival, a verbal altercation ensued. However, the video does not depict Ms. Ranaut being slapped.
Kangana took social media to post a video clarifying the incident in which she said, “I am safe. I am perfectly fine. The incident happened at the security check-in. The woman guard waited for me to cross. She then came from the side and hit me. She started throwing expletives. I asked why she hit me. She said ‘I support farmers’. I am safe, but my concern is terrorism is rising in Punjab. How do we handle that?”
In another video, the woman constable who slapped Ms Ranaut, Kulwinder Kaur was seen saying that she slapped the actress for ‘disrespecting farmers’ during farmer’s protest. “She (Kangana Ranaut) said the farmers are sitting there for ₹ 100. Will she go and sit there? My mother was sitting there and protesting when she gave this statement.”
Following the complaint of Kangana Ranaut, the woman constable has been suspended and a First Information Report (FIR) has been registered.