The Tashkent Files: Vivek Agnihotri's directorial to have special screening at Rashtrapati Bhavan

Vivek Agnihotri’s film The Tashkent Files has been invited to the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi for a screening, announced the director on Twitter. The film is based on the mysterious death of India’s second prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in Tashkent (formerly a part of USSR, now in Uzbekistan) in 1966. [caption id=“attachment_6434171” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] A poster of The Tashkent Files. Image from Twitter[/caption] Ahead of its release on 12 April, The Tashkent Files landed in legal trouble after the director and the producers were served a notice by grandsons of Shastri, seeking a stay on the film’s release. Shastri’s family questioned the timing of the film’s release, clashing with the first phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections beginning on 11 April. They also alleged that the makers did not seek permission from the immediate family members of Shastri.

In response, Agnihotri  released a statement  stating that the move to stall the release of the film is politically motivated. The Tashkent Files stars Mithun Chakraborty, Naseeruddin Shah, Shweta Basu, Pankaj Tripathi, Vinay Pathak, Mandira Bedi, Pallavi Joshi, Ankur Rathee and Prakash Belawadi.