An employee’s rape and assault shocked actor-director-singer Farhan Akhtar to such extent that he decided to start a campaign against ‘rape and discrimination’ of women, without any delay. The campaign which has been named ‘‘M.A.R.D’ or “Men Against Rape and Discrimination” has already created an upheaval in the world of social networking sites with strongly-worded slogans.

He has also revealed his future plans regarding this campaign on the sidelines of Shaadi Ke Side Effects shoot that he will also involve schools and colleges to take an active part in the movement "to drive home the message that women need to be respected." It seems that the entire Bollywood has come forward to support his cause as Priyanka Chopra, Arjun Rampal, Sonam Kapoor and Shabana Azmi have already started passionately re-tweeting his tweet to set it trending.

The idea was first born in Akhtar’s mind when his employee 25-year-old Pallavi Purkayastha, a lawyer, was sexually assaulted and murdered by her watchman at home in August last year. Pallavi used to manage the legal accounts of Farhan and Ritesh Sidhwani's company. From that incident onwards, Farhan has continuously disapproved of the government’s insensitivity, who according to him, consider the women "responsible for the inhumane treatment meted out to them." Farhan's initiative has also been supported by SRK, Hrithik Roshan, Shahid Kapoor and Vidya Balan.