I’M ONLY ASKING WHAT SANJU’S CRIME WAS: RAJU
Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani does not agree that his Sanjay Dutt biopic was a ‘whitewashing’
Coming out in staunch support of his biopic on actor Sanjay Dutt’s life, Sanju, director Rajkumar Hirani says he made the film only after being firmly convinced of the controversial Dutt’s innocence in the TADA case against him. Ever since it released, it has been said that Sanju ‘whitewashed’ Sanjay Dutt’s image and indulged in unjustified media bashing.
“All his life, he has been accused that he had stored RDX in his house… I have been through every Supreme Court judgment, and he has not been accused of that at all,” Hirani says. “I made this film because I believed in it and after tremendous research we stepped into this movie. If there was a speck of a doubt that he was involved in that, we wouldn’t have made the film,” he shares.
Hirani adds that the film has had its share of appreciation and positive criticism, too. “I can just gauge from what people are saying about their kids who are into drugs and also father-son relations,” he says, hinting at what he believes is the message the viewers have taken away from the movie.
In November 2006, Dutt was acquitted under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, but convicted under the Arms Act for illegal possession of weapons at the time of the 1993 Bombay bomb blasts.
However, Hirani says that the number of people slamming the film for its “whitewashing” of Dutt was surprising. “There are always two reactions. One from the film’s makers and within the industry, and the other from the real people who are the viewers,” he says, adding that the term ‘whitewashing’, particularly, has been thrown around a lot.
Offering an explanation for his depiction of the troubled actor and his run-ins with the authorities and law and order, Hirani further says, “I am not defending Sanju, but our film, and asking what Sanju’s crime was. We have shown that he kept a gun. We have shown he destroyed it. We have shown that he was given five years for the jail and we have shown that he realises it was a mistake that he made. We have shown he took drugs to this extreme.”
I have been through every Supreme Court judgment, and he has not been accused of (terrorist activities) that at all RAJKUMAR HIRANI FILMMAKER
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