Theatre artistes burnt an effigy of prominent filmmaker and producer Yash Chopra here today to protest against his reported statement that Mangal Pandey was not a freedom fighter.

Yash Chopra the distributor of the film 'Mangal Pandey': The Rising, had yesterday told Delhi High Court that the hero of the 1857 uprising was not a freedom fighter.

The artistes maintained that if Pandey was not a revolutionary and freedom fighter then why was a multi-crore film starring Aamir Khan made to depict his life.