Veteran actress Shabana Azmi has reacted to the incident in which her colleague and BJP’s newly elected MP Kangana Ranaut was allegedly slapped and misbehaved with by a woman CISF constable at the Chandigarh airport. She said she has “no love” for Kangana Ranaut and cannot join the “chorus” of people who are celebrating the incident.

“I have no affection for Kangana Ranaut. But I can’t see myself joining the chorus celebrating ‘Thappad’. If security personnel start taking the law into their own hands, none of us can be safe,” she tweeted on Saturday.

Shabana Azmi’s reaction comes at a time when Kangana Ranaut is embroiled in a defamation case filed by Azmi’s husband Javed Akhtar in 2020. In that case, Javed Akhtar had alleged that his reputation was tarnished when Kangana Ranaut made comments about Sushant Singh Rajput’s death in an interview to a news channel in 2020.

The following year, Kangana Ranaut filed a counter complaint against Javed Akhtar, alleging defamation.

Kangana Ranaut on the ‘slap’ incident

The incident took place on Tuesday when the flamboyant actor-turned-politician was undergoing security check at the Chandigarh airport before boarding Vistara flight number UK 707 to Delhi.

Kangana Ranaut, who won in Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, claimed that a constable came up to her and punched her in the face before abusing her. When she said she asked the constable the reason for the assault, the constable replied that he supports the 2020 farmers’ agitation.

In one of the many videos of the incident that went viral on social media, the accused woman constable Kulwinder Kaur can be seen talking to people present at the airport, presumably after the attack. In the video, Kaur can be heard strongly objecting to Kangana Ranaut’s controversial remarks during the farmers’ protest.

In the viral video, Kaur is heard saying, “Kangana made a statement that farmers are protesting in Delhi because they are being given Rs 100 or Rs 200. My mother was also one of the protesters at that time.”

Kangana Ranaut had sparked a controversy during the farmers’ protest when she mistook an elderly woman participating in the protest as Bilkis Bano, a prominent figure at the Shaheen Bagh protests. The actress, in a now-deleted tweet, had claimed that the woman was “available for Rs 100” to participate in the protest.

Constable Kaur was later suspended and taken into custody. An FIR was filed against her and CISF ordered a Court of Inquiry into the incident.