Salim Khan proud of film industry for supporting ‘Udta Punjab’

Udta Punjab is expected to affect the current ruling party badly in the upcoming assembly elections in the state, as per political analysts. “If you see, Ekta (Kapoor), Anurag (Kashyap), all are questioning the (rationale of) censor board”, he said.

As fate would have it, a leading national newspaper published its “Narco War” investigative series the same day, chronicling more than 14,000 drug-related FIRs filed, over 17,000 arrests and seizures of over 40,000 kg of drugs in Punjab alone in 2014. “We will implement the order”, Nihalani said.

Nihalani, who was in the eye of the storm over suggesting a very large number of cuts, said nine members of the Central Board of Film Certification watched the film and “unanimously” cleared it after the proposed 13 cuts.

Baljeet, who himself belongs to Punjab, says he is unhappy with the way “Udta Punjab” has been highlighted in the film, which also stars Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Diljit Dosanjh.

Nihalani, a self-proclaimed “sychophant” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, ” I follow the rule book, films are given certificate based on CBFC guidelines”. “I never said (I am) a chamcha“, he said.

The board’s suggestions include removal of abusive words from dialogue, certain words from the songs, references to Punjab and places in the state and deletion of close-up shots of actors injecting the drugs.

High Court over the matter also said to Censor board which tried to sanitize the film that in this age films like this works and just using Expletives will not work for the movie, so Censor board needs not to be this critical over the film. And “Udta Punjab” makers don’t want to miss this. The censor board has also some objections regarding the title as Udta Punjab.

Read |Udta Punjab: How high is the state? “They shouldn’t be restricted”, he added. The movie releases in the run-up to the Punjab elections slated for early next year.

“We have submitted an interim report to the government, the details of which can not be revealed”.