A second virtual meeting was held between the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the makers of Amazon Prime Video originals’ web series Tandav including the representatives of the streaming giant. After the meeting, the makers of the web series thanked I&B for their ‘guidance’ and announced that the scenes that are hurting the Hindu religious sentiments, would be scissored.
Ali Abbas Zafar, the director of the 9-episode web series, attended both of the virtual meetings. Later, he took to his Twitter account to announce that he is going to drop certain scenes to ‘address the concerns raised’.
“The cast & crew of Tandav have made the decision to implement the changes to the web series to address the concerns raised towards the same. We thank the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for the guidance & support in the matter. We once again apologize if the series has unintentionally hurt anybody’s sentiments”.
Later, he shared a screenshot of an official statement from the cast and crew of Tandav on his Twitter handle, which read – “We have the utmost respect for the sentiments of the people of our country. We did not intend to hurt or offend the sentiments of any individual, caste, community, race, religion, or religious beliefs, or insult or outrage any institution, political party or person, living or dead.”
Notably, since the release of the political drama, several BJP leaders demanded the show be removed from the OTT platform. Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra decided on filing a case against the makers of the series, stating – “I condemn the way Zeeshan Ayyub, Saif Ali Khan, and Ali Abbas Zafar reacted to our religion and hurt sentiments”. In Uttar Pradesh, charges were filed against the entire cast and crew under the Information Technology Act and the SC/ST Act.