The Bombay high court has nodded to hear a PIL seeking a stay on the release of the film ‘The Kashmir Files‘ on 8th March 2022. The film is based on the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus in 1990 and it is directed by National Film Awards winning director Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri. This film is scheduled to release on 11th March 2022.
A PIL was filed against Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri’s upcoming movie The Kashmir Files by a resident from UP named Intezar Hussain Sayed seeking to stall the release of the film. The PIL was mentioned for urgent listing before Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Vinay Joshi, who agreed to hear it on Tuesday at 4 PM. After the trailer of the movie was released, the petitioner had alleged that the trailer hurts the religious feelings of the Muslim community. However, Vivek Agnihotri had denied the allegations and said that his movie only shows the truth.
In this plea, it is said, “The film will not only hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslim community but also ignite emotions and inflame members of the Hindu community with a clear possibility of triggering violence in all parts of India.”
It further said, “his movie, as can be seen from the trailer released, has scenes which hurt the religious feelings of the people of India, more particularly the Muslim community and has a very potent mixture of inflammatory scenes which are bound to cause communal violence in the prevailing circumstances in the country.”
The plea also mentions, “The dialogues as can be seen in the trailer are discriminatory, defamatory and against the principles of the Constitution of India. The dialogues are violative of the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 15 of the Constitution of India, being inflammatory in nature.”
The petitioner also pleaded to immediately take down the trailer of this film till the hearing is done.
When Intezar Hussain Sayed had initially alleged the film of hurting religious sentiments, OpIndia had spoken to Vivek Agnihotri about this matter. Determined to showcase the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus on-screen through The Kashmir Files, Agnihotri while speaking to OpIndia had remarked, “I can prove in any court or any platform of their choice that every frame, every word in my film is truth. Nothing but the truth.” On the news of a PIL being filed against the film, he had said, “They can create as many hurdles as they want but I can’t be silenced.”
Even before that, members of the Shia community were angered over the portrayal of the religious leader in Shia Islam, Ayatullah Khamenei in the film. Maulana Kalbe Jawad from Lucknow had remarked that The Kashmir Files shows the Shia Supreme leader Khamenei in poor light. He had alleged that the film connects Khamenei with terrorism. Writing to I&B Minister Anurag Thakur, Maulana Jawad had said that the film conspires to harm the relations between Iran and India, and hence an inquiry should be done.
Responding to a question about this, Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri had commented, “The producers of the film will deal with notices through the legal means. All I can tell you is that in any court of the world, on any platform, forum or gathering, I can take responsibility for each and every dialogue, scene, and character portrayed in the film. I can prove myself with hundreds of references, videos, visual sources, etc.”
The trailer of Vivek Agnihotri’s upcoming multi-starrer film ‘The Kashmir Files’ has caused a storm on the internet with 9.5 million views in 10 days on Youtube alone. While the film is set to release on March 11, 2022, in the theatres, you can watch Vivek Agnihotri’s conversation with OpIndia CEO Rahul Raushan here.
