Shiv Sainiks, raising slogans against the film, stormed the popular Gemini hall here and members of the party’s women’s wing set ablaze posters of the movie at the Chitra theatre, forcing cinegoers to leave the cinema hall midway. The action by the Sena workers came after Manisha, the lead actress in the film who objected to obscene shots in it using her duplicate, had a meeting with Sena supremo Bal Thackeray here. PTI

Manisha stays away from NCW meeting
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 6
Film actress Manisha Koirala chose not to participate in discussions on the larger issue of indecent representation of women in the media at a consultative meeting convened by the National Commission for Women (NCW) here today.

The NCW chairperson, Dr Purnima Advani, said they had not received any communication from the actress.

Manisha’s petition to the commission (the first by an Indian actress) to protect her rights as a woman and an actress prompted the commission to hold discussions with women organisations and legal experts.

Briefing mediapersons after the deliberations, the NCW chairperson, said the commission should be represented in the censor board. “We look at the censor board as a watchdog. It should look at the issue in a very sensitive manner because it after all concerns the dignity of a woman.”

Dr Advani said the commission planned to file a comprehensive litigation in the Supreme Court citing the Manisha case and a few similar incidents to demand strict enforcement of the Indecent Representation of Women Act. “We also recognise the fact that we need to look at the larger ambit of constitutional provisions. Sections 292 and 293 of the IPC deal with obscenity while Sections 405 deals with breach of trust and Section 420 with cheating. Section 405 and 420 were talked about with reference to Manisha’s case and the contract she signed with the producer of the film.”

The commission has recommended that the scope of the Act should not remain limited to the print media but also extend to the visual media. Besides, a mandatory reference should be made to the NCW by the censor board regarding films which portray the negative image of women in case of lack of consensus among members of the censor boards.