Kangana Ranaut lashes out at ‘filthy behaviour’ of Karan Johar’s Dharma; demands action for dumping waste at Goa village

Mumbai, October 28

Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut on Tuesday reacted to a Twitter video that claimed Dharma Productions, the production house of Karan Johar, has allegedly littered a village in Goa with biomedical waste after wrapping up a shoot featuring Deepika Padukone.

"Movie industry is not a virus just for the moral fibre n culture of this nation but it has become very destructive and harmful for the environment also, @PrakashJavdekar ji @moefcc see this disgusting, filthy, irresponsible behaviour by so, called big production houses, pls help," tweeted Kangana from her verified account tagging Prakash Javadekar, Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the official Twitter handle of the ministry.

Kangana's tweet came in reaction to a tweet by a user who shared screenshot of a news headline that claims Johar's Dharma Productions has allegedly littered a Goan village named Nerul with garbage after wrapping up shooting for an untitled film featuring Deepika Padukone.

The user also shared a video of garbage and wrote: "Next Time Karan Johar & Deepika Padukone pretends to care about the planet , remember that they threw Biomedical waste, including PPEs from health centers & govt hospitals on roadside in Goa. For this, an example should be made out of them. Heavy Fine and Public Shaming needed."

A day after Kangana highlighted the issue, Goa-based line producer Dilip Borkar, who had been hired by the Karan Johar's production firm, said that the national award-winning actress did not know ground realities.

"No one knows the ground reality. Kangana Ranaut does not know anything about what is happening here. This is wrong. She is spoiling Goa's name," Borkar told a press conference in Panaji on Wednesday.

"...there are efforts to defame us. We do not know why, maybe because Dharma Production is involved or Karan Johar's name is involved," Borkar said.

The controversy erupted after photos of garbage bags indiscriminately dumped by the film production crew went viral on social media, following which the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG), a government agency which oversees film-shoot related regulation, issued a show cause notice to Borkar.

The notice had said that norms of garbage disposal were not followed, while disposing non-biodegradable waste, which included PPE gear used in the film shoot.

Borkar said that the shooting for the Dharma Production film starring Deepika Padukone, was being carried out in a villa in the beach village of Nerul in North Goa and the daily collection of garbage was dumped at a site designated by the local village Panchayat authority.

"The garbage was disposed of by a local contractor appointed by the village Panchayat every day. Only on Sunday, he failed to do so, after which the photos went viral," Borkar said. IANS