Meghna Gulzar agrees Deepika Padukone’s JNU visit did impact Chhapaak: ‘The conversation went somewhere else’

Meghna said that the entire episode did derail the conversation on acid attack survivors that the film was about. Speaking at the IndianIndianIndian Express Adda event, she said, "I am sure that the answer is pretty obvious. Yes, of course, it made a dent on the film. Because the conversation went from acid violence, which I intended the film to amplify, to somewhere else. So, of course it impacted the film. There is no denying that.”

JNU was on the boil in early 2020 when groups of masked miscreants intruded into the campus and assaulted students in the Sabarmati hostel with sticks and metal rods. The controversy took bigger shape with JNU students getting accused of raising ‘antinational slogans’ on campus.

Before heading to JNU, Deepika Padukone had spoken about the violence against students at the JNU campus in an interview to NDTV. “I feel proud to see that we aren’t scared to express ourselves... I think the fact that we are thinking about the country and its future.... Whatever may be our point of view, it’s nice to see,” she had said.