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NCP-SP leader Fahad Ahmad has rejected allegations that his wife and actor Swara Bhaskar insulted rape survivors, saying her remarks on the practice of ‘jauhar’ were being misrepresented and claiming that she was being targeted for speaking against the ideology of the BJP and RSS. The controversy followed Bhaskar’s recent remarks while revisiting an eight-year-old open letter she had written to filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali over the portrayal of ‘jauhar’ in Padmaavat. She had argued that depicting thousands of women committing ‘jauhar’ to protect their honour could make rape survivors today feel like “cowards” for choosing to survive. Speaking to IANS, Ahmad said Bhaskar had never called the women who committed ‘jauhar’ cowards. He said her argument was that such acts, which involved immense suffering, should not be celebrated or glorified. “Swara Bhasker never said that the women who committed ‘Jauhar’ were cowards,” Ahmad said, alleging that her comments had been presented in a “completely different” manner. Explaining the reference to the word “coward”, Ahmad said Bhaskar was speaking hypothetically about how a rape survivor might feel after seeing such portrayals, questioning why she had not chosen the same course. He cited a scene from the recent film Main Wapas Aaunga, set during Partition, in which a grandmother kills young girls to prevent them from being raped. Ahmad said the scene conveyed anguish and suffering rather than celebrating the act, which he described as the central point of Bhaskar’s argument. Ahmad also alleged that he and Bhaskar had received death threats following the controversy. He criticised the intensity of online trolling and said disagreements with a woman’s views should be addressed through arguments rather than personal targeting.