Gunjan Saxena's colleague says makers of Netflix film 'have twisted facts for the sake of publicity'

In a Facebook post, Indian Airforce (IAF) pilot Gunjan Saxena’s colleague  Sreevidya Rajan has noted that the recently released Janhvi Kapoor -starrer falters factually. Sreevidya writes that while the film shows Saxena as the sole female pilot at the Udhampur Air Base, in reality there were the two of them. She says that while there was resistance from some fellow officers when it came to sharing the professional space with female pilots, they also received support from a majority. [caption id=“attachment_8691161” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] A still from Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl[/caption] She further writes that they were never subjected to humiliation as depicted in  Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl . Sreevidya points out that she was the first female pilot sent out with her male counterparts when the Kargil War began. “The heroic acts of the protagonist portrayed in the climax never actually happened and may have been shown as part of cinematic licence,” she writes. Sreevidya also writes that the makers of the film have “have twisted the facts given by Gunjan for the sake of publicity.” She points that Saxena has many achievements under the belt, which Gunjan Saxena sidesteps and instead shows her character as “a weak and oppressed victim.” “We probably were given this fame because of our gender which I do not support. In defence services, there is no disparity between male or female. We are all officers in uniform,” says Sreevidya in her post. Here is the post

Recently, the IAF had written to Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) objecting to Gunjan Saxena’s “undue negative” portrayal in certain scenes. The also features Pankaj Tripathi as Gunjan’s father, and Neena Gupta as the mother. Angad Bedi takes on the role of the protagonist’s brother. Rajat Barmecha, Vijay Varma, Manu Rishi, and Harsh Chhaya portray pivotal characters as well.