The Sikh pub­lic out­cry has borne fruit and lead­ing Bol­ly­wood ac­tor Shah Rukh Khan and his pro­duc­ers have re­lented and even though at the last hour be­fore the re­lease of the movie ZERO, they have with­drawn the ob­jec­tion­able poster where he is shown wear­ing the Kir­pan and the blas­phe­mous scene as shown in the trailer has been deleted.

After dilly-dal­ly­ing for two months, in­clud­ing an aborted at­tempt to wade through the con­tro­versy by con­vinc­ing Delhi MLA and DS­GMC sec­re­tary gen­eral Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa that the im­pugned scene ob­jected to by Sikhs did not show Shah Rukh Khan wear­ing the Kir­pan but a dag­ger, the pro­ducer com­pany Red Chill­ies En­ter­tain­ment through an af­fi­davit to the Mum­bai High Court has re­luc­tantly agreed to re­move the ob­jec­tion­able scene by say­ing that they have re­placed the said Kir­pan with an or­na­men­tal sword.

Petioner Am­rit­pal Singh had con­tended that Shah Rukh Khan in one of the 20 sec­ond se­quences in the trailer of the movie Zero and in the film posters is shown to be wear­ing a “kir­pan in gatra” around his neck and shoul­der along with an un­der­gar­ment and a gar­land of 500 ru­pee notes. This de­pic­tion of the Kir­pan which is one of the five sym­bols of the Sikh faith is deroga­tory to the Sikh re­li­gion and is blas­phe­mous.

Fil­ing an 11 page af­fi­davit, Shah Rukh Com­pany Red Chill­ies En­ter­tain­ment Pri­vate Lim­ited, which has pro­duced the movie Zero has said, “With a view to en­sure that no re­li­gious or cul­tural sen­ti­ments are hurt, de­spite the fact that the Film and its poster de­picted only an or­na­men­tal dag­ger and not a kir­pan, steps have been taken by Re­spon­dent No. 5 (the pro­duc­tion com­pany) to al­ter the rel­e­vant scenes in the Film. The por­tions in ques­tion have been al­tered through vi­sual ef­fects to de­pict an or­na­men­tal sword and it is this fi­nal copy of the Film that was sub­mit­ted for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to the Cen­tral Board of Film Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion (CBFC). The poster com­plained of (which is one of 5 of­fi­cial posters for the Film) has been re­moved from the of­fi­cial chan­nels of com­mu­ni­ca­tion of these Re­spon­dents.”

Pe­ti­tioner Ad­vo­cate Am­rit­pal Singh Khalsa of Mum­bai in­formed the World Sikh News that the mat­ter could not be dis­cussed in de­tail as it was not listed, but the re­spon­dents have filed an af­fi­davit say­ing that they have with­drawn the poster car­ry­ing the ob­jec­tion­able photo as well as deleted the im­pugned scene. He said that the lawyers of Shah Rukh Khan have con­firmed that no Kir­pan is de­picted in the movie Zero now.

When the Sikhs ob­jected to the de­pic­tion of the Kir­pan, the Zero mak­ers tried to wrig­gle out of the sit­u­a­tion by telling to Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa that it was a dag­ger, and not a Kir­pan.  The re­spon­dent also said that he was not de­pict­ing a Sikh char­ac­ter and that he was not wear­ing the Kir­pan. Un­for­tu­nately, with­out ver­i­fi­ca­tion, this was ac­cepted by the Delhi MLA and DS­GMC gen­eral sec­re­tary Mr Sirsa.

Though the case is still pend­ing in the High Court, the movie Zero, is likely to see the light of the day on 21 De­cem­ber when it is slated to be re­leased world­wide. It should how­ever be noted that de­spite protests from Singh Sabha Mum­bai and Sikhs from Pun­jab as well as be­ing a re­spon­dent in the case filed in the Mum­bai High Court, the Cen­tral Board of Film Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion has not filed any re­ply so far in the court. This mat­ter will be taken up by the court when it re­opens in Jan­u­ary af­ter the win­ter va­ca­tions.

The pe­ti­tioner Am­rit­pal Singh Khalsa, speak­ing to the World Sikh News said that the CBFC has a lot to an­swer and that he will take this up af­ter the va­ca­tion that de­spite the se­ri­ous­ness of the sit­u­a­tion, the CBFC has not filed any replied in the court.

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Vice Pres­i­dent of Singh Sabha Mum­bai, Kul­want Singh speak­ing to WSN said that if the af­fi­davit is to be be­lieved, it is good that bet­ter sense has pre­vailed but we still fail to fathom as to why pro­duc­ers, ac­tors and di­rec­tors re­sort to such stu­pid acts which are deroga­tory in na­ture. He said that Singh Sabha has re­ceived a com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the CBFC but they did not make any ef­fort to call us to re­view the dis­puted scene be­fore or af­ter the pur­ported cor­rec­tion. We will con­tinue our cam­paign for hav­ing a Sikh mem­ber nom­i­nated to the CBFC screen­ing Com­mit­tee in Mum­bai, Delhi and other cen­tres.