Lock Upp: Zeeshan Khan reacts to being ousted from the show for hitting Azma Fallah, says ‘her actions were wrong too’

Days after being evicted from reality series Lock Upp, Zeeshan Khan has opened up about his unceremonious exit. The actor was ousted from the show by the jailor Karan Kundrra after he repeatedly threatened and subsequently hit co-contestant Azma Fallah. The show’s host actor Kangana Ranaut had also condemned the incident stating that “any kind of violence against women is completely unacceptable”. Now, in a social media post, Zeeshan has apologised for his actions but also defended himself, laying some of the blame for the fight on Azma. Also read: Karan Kundrra ousts Zeeshan Khan from Lock Upp for hitting Azma Fallah: ‘I would’ve broken your leg’

Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, Zeeshan shared a screengrab of a long text note. He captioned it, “I hope this reaches the right people and that I get a chance to share my side of the story too. Thank you for having me.”

His note began with gratitude to his fans, who have supported him online. “I just wanna start with a big THANK YOU. My heart is full of gratitude today after seeing so much support. It gives me immense joy to see all the videos and messages that you guys have been sending me into my DMs and telling me how I stood up for the right. And this itself means a lot to me. End of the day winning hearts is more important than winning the show and the fact that I won the hearts of millions of ya’ll is a huge victory for me itself,” he wrote.

The actor then admitted that ‘things went out of hand’ and apologised but not before defending himself. His note further read, “I agree things went out of hand and I apologise for the same and meant it even when I apologized inside.” Referring to his mother and girlfriend, whom he has mentioned on the show as well, Zeeshan added in his note, “If abuse on a woman is wrong, I stood for 2 most imp women in my life who were being verbally and mentally abused for 2 weeks and weren’t there to defend themselves.”

He concluded by laying some blame for the altercation on Azma, implying that he had been provoked. “A pen is always mightier than the sword and hence my actions were wrong but even the person in this case, her actions over the period of 2 weeks were wrong too. We live in a equal world. That’s all that I would like to say,” his note ended.

In a recent episode, Zeeshan threatened Azma with physical violence and told her that he will break her mouth with a hammer after she made some comment about his girlfriend Reyhna Malhotra. During the altercation, he snatched the broom in her hands and moved it towards her, hitting her in the eye. Azma could be seen in tears as the other contestants tried to control Zeeshan.

As a punishment for his actions, Zeeshan was told either to apologise to Azma or to leave the show. To apologise, he had to crouch 50 times and say to Azma that he will never do such violence to her or any other girl. He chose to apologise. However, in the following episode, jailor Karan Kundrra paid a surprise visit to Lock Upp and ousted Zeeshan after having a long discussion about the incident. Karan told Zeeshan, “The way you assaulted a woman, do you know the legal implications of this s**t?”

Lock Upp streams on Alt Balaji and MX Player all seven days and Kangana Ranaut’s Judgement Day episodes stream on weekends. Prince Narula recently entered the show as a troublemaker.