A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed before the J&K High Court on Tuesday to stop the screening of Bollywood movie ‘Shikara’ for “wrong portrayal of Kashmiri Muslims and the mass migration of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990”.
According to the petitioners including journalist Majid Hyderi, former NC leader Iftikhar Misgar and advocate Irfan Hafiz Lone, the trailers of the movie showed “the painful migration of Kashmiri Pandits while portraying the local population, especially Muslims, in contrast to actual facts and events”.
The movie is scheduled to be released on February 7.
“It has tendency of hurting the sentiments of all Kashmiris. The movie has communal content, with no distinction drawn between civilians and militants. When the government records also suggest that there was no role of Muslim population especially Muslims in the mass migration from the Valley. In fact, local Muslims were deadly against the incidents leading to the mass migration,” reads the petition.
The petition, if admitted by the court, will be first such case since 1990 where all events and incidents are likely to be documented up to January 19, 1990, the day the minority community left the Valley.
The petitioners allege that there was “a motive behind the false narration of facts in the movie and the timing of its release”.
“Those who are ignorant of the events and have never visited Kashmir valley, after watching the trailers, have started blaming the Muslim population, invoking a war cry. Many Kashmiri students studying across the country are likely to be victimised,” it pleads.
The petition underlined that all the efforts of the security agencies to maintain calm in Kashmir will go in vain if the movie is allowed to be released “with the concocted and fabricated content”.
The petition has listed the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry, the government of Jammu and Kashmir, the Central Board of Film Certification, the National Film Development Corporation and Director Vidhu Vinod Chopra, as defendants.
