Singapore: The Kashmir Files, a Bollywood movie on the exodus of Hindus from the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, will be banned in multi-racial Singapore as the film has been assessed to be beyond the city-state’s film classification guidelines, a media report said on Monday.
The authorities have assessed the Hindi-language film to be beyond Singapore’s film classification guidelines, said the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) in a joint statement with the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).>
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“The film will be refused classification for its provocative and one-sided portrayal of Muslims and the depictions of Hindus being persecuted in the on-going conflict in Kashmir,” the authorities told Channel News Asia.>
“These representations have the potential to cause enmity between different communities, and disrupt social cohesion and religious harmony in our multiracial and multi-religious society,” they said.
Under the film classification guidelines, any material that is denigrating to racial or religious communities in Singapore will be refused classification, they added.>
The Vivek Agnihotri-directed movie, being screened in India since March to mixed reviews, is based on the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir Valley the 1990s due to terrorism.>
The film, written and directed by Agnihotri, stars Anupam Kher, Mithun Chakraborty and Pallavi Joshi in lead roles.>
(Gurdip Singh)