Vivek Agnihotri sends legal notice to Mamata Banerjee for comments on 'The Kashmir Files'

Mumbai: Filmmaker Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri on Tuesday said he has sent a legal notice to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for defaming his movie ”The Kashmir Files”.

Officials in the chief minister’s office said they had no information on the legal notice. Banerjee on Monday ordered a ban on the screening of ”The Kerala Story” and criticised ”The Kashmir Files” as a movie made to humiliate one section of society. Agnihotri said he had sent the legal notice along with his actor-wife Pallavi Joshi and producer Abhishek Agarwal. He shared a copy of the document in his Twitter post.

”I have, along with @AbhishekOfficl & Pallavi Joshi, sent a LEGAL NOTICE to the Chief Minister, Bengal @MamataOfficial for her false & highly defamatory statements made with malafide intention to defame us & our films #TheKashmirFiles & upcoming 2024 film #TheDelhiFiles,” the filmmaker tweeted.

Written and directed by Agnihotri, ”The Kashmir Files” depicts the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from Kashmir following members of the community being killed by terrorists. Featuring Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumar, Mithun Chakraborty and Pallavi Joshi, the movie opened to polarised reactions in March 2022 and became one of the most commercially successful Hindi films of the year.

On Monday, Banerjee claimed that some ”stars nominated and funded by the BJP” are working on a film called ”Bengal Files”.

”They came to Bengal also with some distorted, concocted stories. They are preparing a film ‘Bengal Files’. If they can prepare ‘The Kashmir Files’ to condemn Kashmiri people… Now they have defamed Kerala people and the Kerala state also,” she said in Kolkata, referring to the recent controversy over ”The Kerala Story”.

Directed by Sudipto Sen, ”The Kerala Story” on women being forcefully converted and recruited by the terror group Islamic State (IS), released on May 5 to a huge political debate. It has been made tax free in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, while multiplexes in Tamil Nadu have cancelled its screenings.