The Deepika Padukone starrer-Chhapaak which chronicles the story of acid attack survivor Lakshmi Agarwal, got caught in a social media storm after Padukone’s decision to visit JNU in solidarity with the leftist protesters on Tuesday (8 January).

This resulted in polarising reactions as many pointed out the lack of solidarity shown towards ABVP students who reportedly first came under attack from leftist goons.

As part of a backlash against Padukone’s JNU “meet and greet”, social media users researched the names of the characters involved in the movie Chhapaak and conspicuously found the name of main perpetrator Naeem Khan absent.

Quick Lowdown Of The Case

In 2005, Lakshmi Agarwal, then a 15-year-old student in Delhi, was travelling to a bookstore in Khan Market when a 32-year-old Naeem Khan attacked her with acid.

Lakshmi belonged to a lower middle-class family and had taken up a job at a bookstore to help support her family.

Khan, had earlier expressed her interest in marrying Lakshmi, and had began stalking her after she rejected his proposals. Khan who also went by the name Guddu, was well known to Lakshmi’s family and had visited their home on multiple occasions.

Laxmi stated that her mother before marriage belonged to Muslim religion and therefore, the appellant was a regular visitor in her house.

As per reports, Khan meticulously planned the attack along with his brother Imran as part of his “revenge” against Lakshmi. The duo took the help of Imran’s friend Rakhi who accompanied Naeem Khan as they threw acid on Lakshmi’s face. Naeem was ultimately sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment.

According to Laxmi's statement, at the time she was working as a sales representative at New Janta Book Depot, Khan Market and had studied up to class 8th. She liked a boy named Raj Kamal who was her classmate in school.

She also stated that Naeem worked in the neighbourhood and was also well-known by her family members. He wanted to marry her but she declined his proposal. This was the motive behind the attack, Laxmi stated.

On the day of the incident, Naeem drove the bike, and sitting on the pillion was Rakhi, his brother Imran's wife. It was Rakhi who threw the acid on Laxmi's face.

Hiding The Accused’s Religion?

In light of Chhapaak’s release this Friday (10 January) and Padukone’s JNU solidarity decision, Twitter users decided to research to find out as to how consistent the movie has been with the original incident.

A cursory glance on IMDB though showed that there is no character named either Naeem or Imran present in the list.