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The war has intensified between the CBFC chairperson Pahlaj Nihalani and a news channel which he challenged to prove that the Indian movie-going audience is okay with Shah Rukh Khan discussing ‘intercourse’ with AnushkaSharma in the trailer of Jab Harry Met Sejal.
Now that the news channel claims to have got more than 1 lakh voters to approve of the ‘I’ word, Nihalani says he is being hounded by the channel’s reporters.
In any case Nihalani is thinking of strict legal action against the specific news channel for harassment and defamation. “They’ve been attacking me headlong because no one watches this channel. This is is their way of boosting their TRPs. They are not only using my name to sell their channel, they’re also hounding me to get me to speak.”
The CBFC chairperson claims he was stalked by a young female reporter for his bytes for the news channel. “She waited for six hours at our CBFC office. When I finally reached, she thrust the mike in my face asking questions about the ‘intercourse’ language in Shah Rukh Khan’s film. I refused to answer and walked off. But she followed me into the lift and kept badgering me for a reply.”
The CBFC chairperson thinks the news channel should stop playing judge jury and God. “Who are you to decide whether I stay or go? What gives you the right to call me names? I am doing my job and I am answerable to the government, not to some news channel which is desperate to boost its TRPs by abusing me.”
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