Rani Mukerji: More women should join the police force

Mumbai: Actress Rani Mukerji, who plays a cop in "Mardaani 2", has urged women of the country to join the police force in large numbers.

"I want more and more girls and women of our country to choose the police department as their profession because personally as a citizen of this country, I feel that there aren't better police officers than female police officers," said Rani, at a special screening of "Mardaani 2" for female officers of Maharashtra Police in Mumbai.

The film is a sequel to the 2014 film "Mardaani" with Rani reprising her role of Superintendent of Police Shivani Roy. The new film is set in Kota, Rajasthan, and it revolves around Shivani trying to nab a 21-year-old villain played by Vishal Jethwa.

About the screening, Rani told the female officers: "The film releases on 13th December but we wanted to show it to you first. I am happy that all of you could come to watch this film and give me your feedback. I will try to do more films like this in future."

The trailer of "Mardaani 2" has received over 10 million views on YouTube since its release. Asked what kind of response she expects from the audience, Rani said: "Now they (the female police officers) have watched the film and we have got good feedback from them. This has increased my confidence. I now pray that once the film releases on Friday, everyone will react in the same as these police officers."

Whole Rani plays the fearless cop Shivani Roy in "Mardaani 2", her old friend and co-star of several films, Salman Khan, will hit the theatres a week later as the maverick Inspector Chubul Pandey in "Dabangg 3".

"Chulbul Pandey is a male officer and Shivani Roy is a female officer. Both of them work for the police. Shivani Roy is a superintendent of police, so I am his (Chulbul Pandey) senior. He still has two stars (sub-inspector rank). That's the only difference, Rani quipped.

"Mardaani 2" is directed by Gopi Puthran and produced by Rani's husband Aditya Chopra under the banner of Yash Raj Films.