Censor board cuts dialogue on Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in RGV's 'Veerappan'

Ram Gopal Varma’s upcoming Hindi film Veerappan has received an ‘A’ rating from the Central Board of Film Certification. Despite this, the filmmaker was asked for an additional cut. The censors apparently wanted a line of dialogue removed from the film. [caption id=“attachment_2796466” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sandeep Bharadwaj as Veerappan in Ram Gopal Varma’s film on the smuggler[/caption] The filmmaker shared this development in an interview with Firstpost’s contributing editor Anna MM Vetticad. The dialogue in question is delivered by Sandeep Bharadwaj, the actor who plays Veerappan in RGV’s film, and refers to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi having been assassinated by (LTTE’s) Prabhakaran. RGV pointed out that this is a statement of fact, but the censors were not swayed, and retained the cut. Veerappan follows the life of the sandalwood smuggler and the events that led to his capture and death. The film’s script has drawn extensively from RGV’s previous Kannada feature film Killing Veerapan. Just a few days ago, the filmmaker triggered a controversy when he said that Veerappan had planned to abduct superstar Rajinikanth. Kannada film actor Rajkumar had been kidnapped by the smuggler in 2000, but was eventually released by Veerappan after 108 days as a hostage. In his interview with Vetticad, the complete video of which will soon be up for viewing on Firstpost, RGV spoke at length about the issues of film censorship and freedom of expression.