Kathmandu Metropolitan City Mayor Balen Shah said that Indian movies will not be allowed to run in movie halls within the city from Monday until the dialogue is removed from the Hindi movie called Adipurush, which says ‘Janki is a Indian daughter’, even after being given 3 days to remove it.
He wrote on Facebook on Sunday afternoon, ‘By prohibiting the showing of the film against the national interest within the Kathmandu metropolitan area, if the film is allowed to be shown in other areas of the country and abroad, it will establish a misleading fact, so no Indian film will be shown in Kathmandu until the objectionable parts are removed from the film. It is prohibited from tomorrow.’
According to Balen’s secretariat, the hall owners have been instructed to stop the screening of Indian films through the city police. After Mayor Shah’s instructions, the city police has reached all the halls till Sunday evening and instructed them not to play Indian films. There are 17 movie halls within 32 wards of Kathmandu metropolis.
Balen said that there is a cultural encroachment on Nepal through the film. As of Sunday evening, the filmmakers have not corrected the dialogue in India. On the contrary, Manoj Muntashir, the lyricist and writer of the film, has given an objectionable statement that Nepal was a part of India before 1903.
Mayor Shah also sent a letter to the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology on Friday and asked them to stop screening of Indian films in Nepal if the dialogue in Adipurush is not shown. Pradeep Kumar Uday, who is also the former president of the Film Association, released the film ‘Adipurush’ which is running from his hall Dwarikaudaya Cinemas in Butwal.
