We often accuse our film stars of living in an ivory tower and being absolutely detached from the ground realities. However, once in a while, a film star does something out of the ordinary to prove all such allegations wrong. After Tsunami, there were Vivek Oberoi and Rahul Bose coming out to help in the rehabilitation work.
And now, the greatest of them all, Shah Rukh Khan, has extended support to the gang-rape victim of Delhi. Actor Deepika Padukone was also with SRK in a Mumbai event to say a few words on the subject. Said Shah Rukh, “I am extremely shocked, saddened and actually disgusted. I have been watching and reading a lot about it. I would like to appeal to all of you, men and women, we hear some talk about women inviting trouble because of the way they dress, when they travel alone late at night, the kind of behaviour or the way they move around. I would like to say that women do not get raped because of these things, they get raped because men rape them. That is the main issue here.”
He went on to say, “Men in our society need to understand this, we need to take a call. It is a very sad incident. Instead of politicising it, we should take action by making stringent laws, having faster courts and of course, we should have a special task force in every city, every State, which should look into these kind of genuinely disgusting activities. We should make sure that the rules made are more stringent so that they make people think a hundred times before indulging in such heinous crime.”
The actor said, “I have been brought up by women, I have been surrounded by women, have been personally and professionally been encouraged by women in every sphere of my life. I have an immense amount of respect for women.”
Deepika also voiced the same words as Shah Rukh, “I think exactly the same. Women are constantly blamed for the way they dress. It is high time that we do something about stopping such crimes. The rules and the laws should become a lot more strict and action needs to be taken and faster.”
One just hopes these words of wisdom set many men in our society thinking the right way.
