Allu Arjun’s bail hearing: Lawyer recalls SRK and ‘Raees stampede’ in 2017
The Pushpa 2 actor’s lawyer argued that Shah Rukh Khan was not found criminally liable in that case
While arguing the case for bail for his client Allu Arjun in the Pushpa 2 stampede case on Friday (December 13), the actor’s lawyer recalled a stampede at Vadodara railway station in which one person died when Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan was promoting his film Raees in 2017.
“The main question before the court is – is somebody doing a rash and negligent act?” the lawyer told the court.
The lawyer said that Shah Rukh Khan, in that instance, had “thrown clothes at the station, which led to the stampede”.
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SRK was not found criminally liable in that case, he told the court. The lawyer also argued that Allu Arjun was on the first floor of Sandhya Theatre when the stampede took place on the ground floor.
He further rebutted the police’s claim that they had not been informed that the Pushpa 2 actor would be attending the special screening of his film.
“The actor was coming. Everyone knew that. Even the police knew,” said the lawyer.
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Responding to the facts of the case and the arguments put forward by Arjun’s lawyer, the court ruled in favour of the actor and granted him interim bail for four weeks in the case.
The court made an observation that Allu Arjun’s status as a hugely popular actor could not compromise his right to liberty.
“Just because he is an actor, he cannot he held like this,” said the court.
The ‘Raees stampede’
To recall the events surrounding the stampede connected to the SRK movie Raees in 2017, the superstar and his production team were travelling from Mumbai to Delhi to promote the film.
The train stopped at Vadodara station in Gujarat, and Shah Rukh Khan interacted with his fans gathered there. He threw a t-shirt and some “smiley” balls at them, and it was said that this led to a stampede in which a person died.
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In April 2022, the Gujarat High Court quashed the criminal case against the Bollywood actor, and later that year, the Supreme Court upheld the verdict.
