Netflix's 'Scoop' director Hansal Mehta on the Kunal Kamra row: '25 years ago, they physically assaulted me, blackened my face and...'

Netflix’s ‘Scoop’ director Hansal Mehta has also commented on the comedian Kunal Kamra row.

In a long statement, the filmmaker said, “What happened with Kamra is, sadly, not new to Maharashtra. I’ve lived through it myself. Twenty-five years ago, loyalists of the same (then undivided) political party stormed into my office. They vandalised it, physically assaulted me, blackened my face, and forced me to apologise publicly – by falling at the feet of an elderly woman – for a single line of dialogue in my film.”

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“The line was harmless, almost trivial. The film had already been cleared by the Censor Board with 27 other cuts. But that didn’t matter. At the so-called ‘apology’ venue, at least 20 political figures arrived in full strength to oversee what can only be described as a public shaming with 10,000 onlookers and the Mumbai police watching in silence,” Hansal Mehta added.

“That incident didn’t just bruise my body. It bruised my spirit. It blunted my filmmaking, muted my courage, and silenced parts of me that took years to reclaim. No matter how deep the disagreement, no matter how sharp the provocation, violence, intimidation, and humiliation can never be justified. We owe ourselves, and each other, better. We owe ourselves dialogue, dissent, and dignity,” he continued.