Satkhira police stop screening of anti-terror movie ‘Jannat’ over title objection

The police have stopped a Satkhira screening of Bangla ‘anti-militancy’ movie ‘Jannat’ over the Imam Association’s objections to the title of the movie.

It may ‘hurt the religious sentiments of the people’ if a movie with such a ‘holy’ title depicts any obscenity, said Imam Association Satkhira President Moulana Abdur Rashid.

The screening was halted to ‘show respect to the feelings of local Muslim devotees,’ the local superintendent of police said.

The movie ‘Jannat’ is directed by Mostafizur Rahman Manik with Mahi and Simon in the lead roles. It was released during Eid-ul-Azha and has been screened for three weeks in different movie theatres across country, bdnews24 reports.

Abdul Haque, owner of Sangeeta Cinema Hall in Satkhira received a ‘directive’ from the police on Friday morning and cancelled the screening of Jannat which was scheduled to have a first show at 12:00 pm on Friday.

Later, they remove the posters and banners of the movie and screened another movie ‘Sultan’ instead.

“I am quite unsure if we can screen ‘Jannat’; it is being screened elsewhere in the country but got stopped only in Satkhira,” said Abdul Haque adding they will screen the Indian movie ‘Naqab’ in the theatre from Sept 21 onwards.

“The movie has a censor certificate but there are always some local factors involved; we have requested the cinema hall authority to halt screenings to respect the feelings of the local Muslim devotees,” Superintendent of Police Sazzadur Rahman briefed reporters.

The filmmakers and crew expressed their surprise over the decision as the censor board had already certified the movie to be screened.

“It’s a movie disdaining terrorism and supporting the spirit of Islam. It has many positive messages on Islam in it and also has been applauded throughout the country. The complaints made against the movie are really unfortunate,” said filmmaker Manik.