Writer Niren Bhatt who co-wrote the film with Utsav Maitra and director Honey Trehan backs his film. He says, “Whatever we have shown in the film is backed by newspaper articles, reports, documentaries, it’s all out there. Also, Supreme Court lawyer Rajvinder Singh Bains, who served as the lawyer for human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra has also said that this is the judicial history of the country. I was hoping that once the film is out people will see there is nothing problematic about it. It’s just a common man’s story who showed tremendous courage to fight for death certificates of people by putting himself and his family on the line. There is nothing controversial or political about it, it’s a human rights story.”

Speaking about the reception he says it was overwhelming, “Whoever has seen the film has been asking why was it kept under wraps for three years, there’s nothing problematic about it. We had given up hope that it will never come out but surprisingly on Friday evening we got a message that it is live now. It’s a difficult film to watch but was getting a positive word of mouth. I was speechless and heartbroken when it was pulled off. Diljit said he anticipated it but I had hope and was confident that everyone will enjoy the film for what it is.”

Opening up about writers being in a quandary he adds, “We were careful while writing this film, we met the affected families, lawyers who fought this case, even policemen. We referred to literature of those times. Now this move is setting a bad precedent because in the future people will refer to our film, like in the past Black Friday was stuck was years because of political reasons. Whoever attempts to tell a story will now be worried whether the project will see light of day. Writers dont get royalties, we dont have entourage and vanity vans, most writers are struggling. If this goes on we will have to play safe, no more real stories, nothing political. Even names of places will have to be fictional, we will have to keep questioning if the film will hurt someone or go against some agenda or ideology. Writers are now scared to attempt anything religious or political.”

He adds that even streaming platforms are answerable to their bosses abroad. He says, “They wont understand why the head of their platform in India is running around for anticipatory bail. After the Tandav controversy anyway there was a lot of self censoring, now we are even more scared. We wrote and made the film with the sole purpose of releasing it in theatres.”

He goes on to say, “The problem is we don’t have any clarity who has taken the film off, it’s only if we have the reason that we can look into the issue,”

Stars should be careful about what film they sign: BN Tiwari, President FWICE
(Federation of Western India Cine Employees)

Meanwhile, BN Tiwari says, “Diljit is a good actor and singer but he should be careful about what films he signs. He should avoid films that cause controversies and can hurt people’s sentiments. If the government and censor board have issues, the film is not fit for public viewing. He has a big fan base who looks up to him, he should keep all this in mind before supporting controversial films, that can create unrest in society.”