The arrest of the senior son of the actor in a suspected drug trafficking feeds the hint of ideological war led against Bollywood.
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The soap opera has been running for three weeks. Indian media rank up to indigestion. Aryan Khan, the son of one of the biggest stars of Indian cinema, Shah Rukh Khan, was arrested on October 2nd by the National Narcotics Agency, with seven other people, in front of the cameras of the TV channels, While staying on a luxury cruise boat off Bombay, heading for Goa.
The police accuse him of being involved in international drug traffic. The 23-year-old man has been in prison since then, while no substance has been found on him and no blood test has been practiced to confirm the trace of an illicit product. Two requests for release on bail have been refused. The Haute Court of Bombay must decide on a third request for liberation.
On the basis of discussions on WhatsApp, the investigators ensure that it is part of a vast “conspiracy”. Télévisions, which broadcast, hour per hour, the latest information about the case, mentioned a “cartel of the drug”. In fact, the antidrogal police seized on the boat, in the cases of other passengers, only small amounts of cocaine and chemicals.
A defender of multiculturalism
The facts against Aryan Khan seem so tenuous that for independent media and for intellectuals, this arrest has no other aimed at the father, Shah Rukh Khan. The “King of Bollywood”, 55, 105 films, 42 million subscribers on Twitter, is a national and international icon, but also a scarecrow for Indian nationalists in India who advocate the ideology of Hindutva, The supremacy of the Hindu religion. Muslim – his father, lawyer, was from Pakistan – the actor married a Hindu, Gauri, with whom he had three children. Coming from the middle class, orphan at 26, it is one of the great fortunes of India and has splendid homes, especially in Bombay, in front of the sea. He is a defender of multiculturalism and has risen against the Intolerance and religious discrimination in India.
The troubles started for him in November 2015, less than a year after the accession of Narendra Modi in power when he had Criticized growing religious tensions in the country after a man, Mohammad Aklaq, suspected of storing beef in his refrigerator, in Uttar Pradesh, had been lynched. “Religious intolerance will lead India to the dark age,” he said. His words earned him to be compared by Yogi Adityanath, an extremist monk, close to Modi, the brain of the Bombay terrorist attacks, in 2006, who had been nearly 200 dead. The partisans of the Indian People’s Party (BJP, today in power) took over. Since then, Shah Rukh Khan has been extremely careful in his interventions.
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