Protests outside Ram Gopal Varma’s house after filmmaker plans movie on vet rape, murder case

Naveen S Garewal 

Tribune News Service 

Hyderabad, October 11  

Infuriated over filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma decision to make a movie “Disha Encounter” that pertains to the brutal gang rape and murder of a veterinarian doctor in Hyderabad, the family of the victim on Sunday staged a protest outside the filmmaker’s residence in Hyderabad. 

The family had earlier moved the Telangana High Court seeking that the release of the film be restrained and also sought a ban on the film, which is scheduled to be released on November 26. The filmmaker has claimed that the movie is based on a “fictional story”, but passion and anger has made the family and supporters relent. 

In a Twitter message, Ram Gopal Varma said, “With regard to speculations on DISHA ENCOUNTER film I once again want to clarify it’s a fictional story based upon many cases from Nirbhaya rape onwards.”  

Disha’s father told the media in Hyderabad today that the filmmaker was unnecessarily rubbing salt on the wounds of the family that was yet to come to terms with the reality after facing the tragedy a year ago. 

The father said Varma had “cast an actor who looks like my daughter, everything about the movie looks like it is about the incident, and despite this, he is saying it is about Disha which means a “path”.”

“Do people believe that? He should tell us what the truth is. If the movie is not about my daughter, why would I get calls and messages about it? He should cast his own daughter in the role and then make the movie. I have another daughter who is of marriageable age, what will be our fate if he drags our family to the streets?” he said. 

The movie apparently is made around the rape and the murder of the veterinarian and the subsequent encounter of the four accused, all truck drivers and cleaners. The body of the veterinarian was found from under a bridge in a burnt state and subsequently the four men accused in the crime were gunned down by the Cyberabad Commissionerate Police allegedly when they tried to escape during evidence collection.  

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