The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) constable who allegedly slapped Mandi MP and actor Kangana Ranaut at the Chandigarh airport for “disrespecting farmers” has been suspended, police said. A police case has also been filed against her.
Ms Ranaut was on the way to board a flight to Delhi after being elected from the Himachal Pradesh constituency in the Lok Sabha Elections when the incident happened.
Kulwinder Kaur, the accused constable, said an old statement by Ms Ranaut triggered her actions.
“She gave a statement… that farmers are sitting there for ₹ 100. Will she go and sit there? My mother was sitting there and protesting when she gave this statement…,” she said, referring to the farmers’ protest in 2020 against the three farm laws passed by the Centre.
During the height of a nationwide agitation, Ms Ranaut had remarked in a social media post that an elderly woman at a protest site was being paid Rs 100 to sit there. After facing widespread backlash, the actor had to delete it.
In a video, recorded by onlookers at the airport, the Mandi MP can be seen escorted to the security checkpoint where the incident occurred. However, as she reaches the area, an argument breaks out and she is then escorted away. The video does not capture the alleged slap.
Hours after the incident, the actor took to X and shared a video message about what occurred at the airport. “The incident happened at the security check-in. The woman guard waited for me to cross. She then came and hit me… started throwing expletives. I asked (her) why she hit me. She said, ‘I support farmers’. I am safe… but my concern is terrorism is rising in Punjab. How do we handle that?” she said in the video.
Ms Ranaut also made headlines in February 2021 after international pop star Rihanna seemed to criticise the BJP government over the farmers’ protest and said, “Why aren’t we talking about this?”
To this, Ms Ranaut had responded, “No one is talking about it because they are not farmers, they are terrorists who are trying to divide India, so that China can take over our vulnerable broken nation and make it a Chinese colony much like the USA… Sit down you fool, we are not selling our nation like you dummies.”
Ms Kangana later deleted that post too.
The farmers’ protest that erupted in 2020/21 – and has rumbled on since, potentially costing the BJP key seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha election – made headlines both in the country and abroad.
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Ms Ranaut has had several run-ins with the protesting farmers; apart from the 2020 and 2021 tweets, her convoy was blocked by agitators while she was trying to campaign in Chandigarh.