Agent Vinod banned in Pakistan for giving country a bad vibe.
Bollywood blockbuster Agent Vinod, which has been compared to James Bond, has been banned from Pakistan for its negative portrayal of the country’s spies.
The film was planned to open late last month in Lahore and Karachi, but Pakistan’s Film Censor Board has pulled the film from its release because it showed the country’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in a bad light.
“It was our judgment that it should not be allowed to be screened,” the vice-chairman of the board, Muhammad Ashraf Gondal, told the Associated Press. “It falls under the negative codes of our censor.”
The film sees the titular character travel to Morocco, Moscow and Afghanistan to prevent a nuclear bomb being set off in India.
During his adventures, he finds that the ISI are sponsoring Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, who plan to carry out attacks in India, as well as combating a glamorous female spy from the agency.
The film’s leading man and producer Saif Akli Khan also admitted that the film’s depiction of Pakistan was less than complimentary.
“We have shown the Pakistani Army involved with the Taliban and Afghanistan,” he said in an interview with the Indo-Asian News Service.
“We have shown them assassinating their own ISI chief.
“We have shown them encouraging terrorist activities in India and financing the Lashkar-e-Taiba. If you feel this is unreasonable or not true, then it is fair enough.”
