No blurring and beeping, says CBFC
Vickey Lalwani (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 22, 2014)

In an interview to Mirror (January 16), CEO of the Censor Board of Film Certification (CBFC), Rakesh Kumar expressed his displeasure over objectionable content being passed in films. "We want to nip this trend in the bud," he had asserted.

Recently, CBFC passed an order that instead of blurring out images deemed offensive, the scenes will have to be edited out. Another order passed says: Beeping of cuss words will be done away with, instead the scene will go mute in the portion where the expletive is used.

Confirming this, Rakesh Kumar told Mirror, "Blurring toh bilkul nahin chalega. And if there are gaalis, a 'U' certificate will only be given if the objectionable part is muted in its entirety. Cuss words become obvious if beeped out."

This order stems from the frontal nudity scene in Ashu Trikha's Vinod Khanna starrer Koyelaanchal and the lovemaking scene between Arshad Warsi and Huma Qureshi in Dedh Ishqiya. Said a source, "CBFC received a lot of flak for these two scenes."

Mirror has it that after the backlash, the censor have chopped several scenes, including a sequence of Jacqueline Fernandez' father getting a massage in Kick. The violence depicted against Shraddha Kapoor and Aamna Shariff in Ek Villain was also toned down, as also scenes of Randeep Hooda hitting Alia Bhatt in Imtiaz Ali's Highway. The CBFC is now taking steps to ensure that violence against women and children committing crimes is not highlighted.

More importantly, every single member of the CBFC will sit for screenings in rotation. Added the source, "Earlier, only select members were invited to screenings which lead to accusations of bias towards certain bigwigs. But now, every one of the 150 members will get his chance to vote." Added Rakesh, "We are trying our best to do a fair job."