AVP members applied black paint on posters of the film and tore them up. (Express Photo)
Members of the Awami Vikas Party (AVP) created a ruckus during a press conference to promote Lagna Mubarak, a Marathi film, at the Patrakar Bhavan in Pune on Thursday. The AVP members claimed that the film, a love story between a Hindu boy and a Muslim girl, contained “objectionable dialogues that could hurt religious sentiments”. They applied black paint on posters of the film and tore them up.
Ashraf Wankar, president of the AVP’s west Maharashtra unit, said, “We saw trailers and posters of the film Lagna Mubarak on social media… we are not against love. But the trailers of the film show a Hindu boy holding a saffron flag and proposing to a Muslim girl… and there are objectionable dialogues. We believe the film will hurt religious sentiments. A few days earlier, we had spoken to director Sagar Pathak over the phone. Pathak claimed that the film spread the message of communal harmony. But the trailer had objectionable dialogues, so we asked him to arrange a screening for us before releasing the film. He had agreed to our demand, but later press conferences to promote the film started. So, our activists entered the press conference, applied black paint on the film posters and tore them up, and shouted slogans. We will continue to oppose the film till the objectionable part is deleted from it.”
However, Sagar Pathak, the producer and director of Lagna Mubarak, said the AVP’s allegations about the film were “laughable”. “The people who created the ruckus today seemed to have no idea what they were doing and what they wanted. Their opinion was based on the trailer of the film and they have made some wrong assumptions. They are saying that we have insulted the saffron flag and we are trying to create a divide between two communities. It is a laughable allegation and completely baseless. We request these people to watch the movie after its release and then form an opinion,” he said.
“The cast and crew of the film held a meeting after the incident. We were going to register a complaint… but the final touches are yet to be given… and this is very crucial time for us. Filing a police complaint and subsequent formalities would take up a lot of our time. We don’t want to take undue advantage of this negative incident,” added Pathak.