The Gujarat High Court observed, on Thursday, that it is preferable for actor Shah Rukh Khan to apologise rather than facing trial in the 2017 case regarding the stampede during the promotions for his film Raees.
Back in 2017, when Khan was promoting his Hindi film Raees, a stampede took place at the Vadodara Railway Station leading to the death of one person. According to the FIR, Khan was travelling from Mumbai to Delhi by train and when he reached the Vadodara Railway Station, a huge crowd had gathered to get a glimpse of the actor. Khan is then said to have waved at the crowd and thrown t-shirts and balls among them, leading to the stampede. The police had to lathi charge the crowd in order to control the situation. The incident left one person dead and several injured.
Following the incident, a local politician named Jitendra Solanki filed a complaint with the Gujarat police against Khan. An FIR was registered under Sections 336, 337, and 338 of the Indian Penal Code for endangering the safety of self or others and Sections 145, 150, 152, 154 and 155 (1) (a) of the Railways Act, 1989. The court took cognisance of the case and issued a summon to the actor.
Khan had then approached the Gujarat High Court to quash the FIR registered against him.
During the hearing of the case on Thursday, Khan’s counsel argued that the actor had not entered the platform of the railway station during the incident in 2017, and had only waved his hand and thrown the promotional material into the crowd, which was not an offence. The lawyer further argued that the person who died during the stampede was a heart patient and had died due to some other reason.
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Justice Nikhil S Kariel, who was hearing the case, asked the opposition counsel if they really wanted the trial to take place with regard to the alleged offence. “Imagine the kind of chaos that would be caused, do you want that?” the judge jokingly added.
The justice then said, “I will ask him (Khan) to send an apology letter to you. Put an end to this matter,” and adjourned the case to Thursday.
Raees is the story of a boy living in Gujarat’s Fatehpur, who gets involved in illegal liquor trading in the state with alcohol prohibition.