Bollywood filmmaker Anurag Kashyap on Thursday expressed his anger after three scenes — two involving Sikhs smoking — were deleted from his latest movie Manmarziyaan without his knowledge.
“Hereby all problems of Punjab are solved and Sikh youth have been saved. Happy to be back in La la land again. Next time you are threatened by a film please call Kishore Lulla directly... Eros knows how to solve matters in minutes,” Kashyap tweeted, referring to the chairman of distributor Eros International.
Dated September 18, the censor copy mentioned the three scenes that were “voluntary deletions made by the applicant after the certification”. The scenes include one featuring Abhishek Bachchan’s Robbie smoking and one with Taapsee Pannu’s Rumi smoking. The third scene had the two of them enter a Gurudwara as bride and groom while Rumi thinks about her past with Vicky Kaushal’s character.
Members of the Sikh community had reportedly expressed displeasure over the smoking scene. According to media reports, a petition was also filed in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Tuesday by a Sikh organisation objecting to a scene in which Bachchan’s character smokes a cigarette after taking off his turban.
Kashyap’s angry reaction also mentioned the contact number of Lulla but was later taken down by Twitter.
“The one time the censor board showed maturity and our spineless studios [expletive] and ran. What a terrible precedent to set,” filmmaker Vikramaditya Motwane, the movie’s co-producer, tweeted.
Manmarziyaan is a love story set in Amritsar.
“We have the deepest respect for all communities and it is our intention to maintain neutrality and never intentionally hurt or disrespect any religion or community,” an official statement from Eros International said. “We have the greatest respect for the law of the land and follow and implement all guidance of the censor board which is the supreme authority for film content in the country.”
