Mamata government cracks down on 'Bengal Files' even before film's release

The trailer launch of filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri's movie, "The Bengal Files," focusing on the historical events of Direct Action Day in 1946, was disrupted in Kolkata on Saturday by the Kolkata Police.

- SUPROTIM MUKHERJEE

The film is based on the 1946 Calcutta Riots in which hundreds of Hindus were massacred.

The movie features Mithun Chakraborty, Anupam Kher, Pallavi Joshi, and Darshan Kumar in pivotal roles. Earlier in the day, a prominent cinema exhibition chain had announced the cancellation of the bookings for the film, which is slated for release on 5 September.

Chaos ensued at a banquet hall of the ITC Royal Bengal hotel on Saturday afternoon as a posse of police personnel from the adjoining Pragati Maidan police station and Lalbazar Police Headquarters walked in even as the trailer was being screened. A senior Kolkata Police officer got on the stage and stopped the trailer launch.

Police personnel in plain clothes seized the laptop from which the trailer was being run and walked out of the banquet hall. At one point, director Agnihotri was seen arguing with Kolkata Police personnel who wanted to see the "permission from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation," though it was not clear why such permission would be necessary in a private event.

Amid the chaos in the room, Agnihotri stood on the stage and said: "This is Bengal. Everything happens here with the direction of some invisible fingers. The truth is not allowed to be shown."

In response to a question from journalists, Agnihotri said that he would not care if he was arrested. Though he was not arrested, by then the director and his actress-producer wife Pallavi Joshi were surrounded by the police. After that, they were taken out of the hotel under tight security.