Anurag Kashyap's new film Manmarziyaan might be receiving praises from all corners but it recently got embroiled into a controversy when certain members of the Sikh community took offence to smoking scenes in the film. Although the director had issued a 'genuine apology' for unintentionally hurting Sikh religious sentiments, it was reported by a news agency on Thursday that the producers have deleted three scenes from the film. This left Anurag and Taapsee furious over the move, which was made solely by the producers.
As per the report, the makers had apparently approached the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to remove the alleged objectionable scenes from Manmarziyaan, starring Taapsee, Abhishek Bachchan and Vicky Kaushal. The censor board copy further suggested that three scenes, including a 29-second smoking sequence featuring Abhishek, an 11-second scene where Taapsee is seen smoking and a minute-long scene featuring Taapsee and Abhishek entering a gurudwara, have been deleted.
"We have removed the three scenes from the film as people’s sentiments were getting hurt. The said changes have come into effect in metros from today and will reflect across India from the coming Thursday-Friday," a source from the production side told the agency.
Anurag, thus, expressed his displeasure at the move on Twitter and called out Eros International, who are the presenters of the film. He even mentioned the phone number of Kishore Lulla, the chairman of Eros International, in his tweet, which was later taken down for violating Twitter's privacy policy. Later, he posted another tweet with a screenshot of his conversation with the Twitter team, who requested him to express his views without revealing personal details.
https://twitter.com/anuragkashyap72/status/1042681112991080448
On the other hand, Taapsee too lashed out at the makers by saying that deleting the scenes will not change the way things function in real life.
https://twitter.com/taapsee/status/1042662680044163073
Manmarziyaan released on September 14.