Padmavati poster
Deepika Padukone in Padmavati posterTwitter

At a time when Karni Sena once again started protesting against the release of Padmavati movie, it appears that the organisation is running an extortion business under the pretext of saving Rajput honour.

India Today carried a sting operation on top members of Karni Sena, and it came out that the organisation has been running an organised extortion racket to snatch money from filmmakers.

The publication stated that one undercover agent met Sukhdev Singh Gogamedi, president of the Shree Rashtriya Rajput Karni Sena, in the guise of an agent of a Bollywood production house. The interaction with Singh revealed the vicious extortion racket of Karni Sena.

The undercover agent told Singh that the production house has plans to make a movie that will show fictitious romance between Mughal emperor Aurangzeb and wife of a Rajput general. Surprisingly, the Karni Sena president instead of getting offended, redirected the conversation to business, and asked him to meet another member of the Sena, Umed Singh in Mumbai.

The report stated that Umed directly told the agent that some people would vandalise the sets, beat a few members of the crew, and the incident would be recorded. It would then be shared on social media to get attention and publicity.

The most shocking part of the conversation came when the member said that the producer has to pay them Rs 1.5 core to keep the sets safe from mobsters for one month. He said that after the producers pay the ransom money, 50 people would be safeguarding the sets for one month.

The Karni Sena activists had recently burned posters of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmavati that features Deepika Padukone in titular role. The organisation had claimed that the makers of the film have distorted historical facts in the movie.

So, was all the ruckus created by Karni Sena, and is still being created, a part of this ransom business? Well, it clearly appears so. It will be interesting to see how Karni Sena would defend themselves after this exposé.

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