The real tragedy of Padmavati

State govts have abdicated their responsibility

When any citizen of India publicly issues a death threat, the ordinary course of the law demands that the state security apparatus should kick in to detain them on the grounds of criminal intimidation. Yet some unknown youth from Meerut continues to remain scot-free after announcing over the weekend a Rs 5-crore bounty on the heads of Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Deepika Padukone, the director and lead actor, respectively, of the movie Padmavati. Instead, the government headed by Chief Minister Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh wrote a letter to the Union Ministry for Information and Broadcasting requesting that the release of