The protest against the screening of Hindi film Padmavati has exaggerated in Rajasthan with Rajput groups in the Mewar region threatening to smash up theatres if the film was shown and the exhibitors asking for police protection for the screening. The movie is set to release on the  Silver screens on December 1.

Padmavati has been facing trouble in Rajasthan at the beginning, while it sets in Jaigarh Fort near here were damaged and filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali was beaten in January this year. During a bandh organized in Chittorgarh last week, the protesters, including several women, took out a march and burnt the film's posters.

Shri Rajput Karni Sena, which planned the bandh, accused that the movie had fainted historical facts. Karni Sena supporter Lokendra Singh Kalvi said the filmmakers were not willing to screen it to the Rajput groups before its release. “If the movie has distasteful scenes, we will not permit its screening in theatres,” he insisted

Other Rajput factions, including the Jauhar Smriti Sansthan, have also insisted that the movie is shown to a few selected intellectual and historians before its screening.

Pratap Singh Khachariyawas, a Rajput chief of the Opposition Congress, has insisted a ban on Padmavati, saying the film-makers were trying to sensationalize the personality of the 13th-14th-century Rajput queen and blemish the bravery of women who sacrificed their lives by attempting Jauhar (self-immolation).