On August 17, the Wildlife Crime Control Unit of the Forest Department filed a case against Mejbaur Rahman Sumon, the director of “Hawa”, for violating the Wildlife Conservation and Security Act of 2012. The case was filed by Inspector Nargis Sultana of the Wildlife Crime Control Unit.
Now, the Information and Broadcasting Minister, Dr Hasan Mahmud has informed the media that a show-cause notice has been issued to Nargis Sultana.
The minister mentioned this during a meeting with film producers, directors, artistes, and other stakeholders at his official residence in Minto Road, on Monday afternoon.
Speaking to the reporters present, Dr Hasan Mahmud said, “Some of these recent films have brought audiences back to the theatres again. One such movie is ‘Hawa’. However, a case was against the director of the film. When this happened, I was outside of the country. After returning, I talked to concerned officials regarding the issue, and now steps have been taken to withdraw the case.”
Director of ‘Hawa’ sued by Wildlife Crime Control Unit
The minister then went on to note that the officer who had filed the case had been issued a show-cause notice by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. “If there was a violation of the law, then they should have given a notice to the director. It was inappropriate to directly go to court and file a case against the movie’s director,” added Dr Mahmud.
In reference to the issue surrounding the movie “Saturday Afternoon”, the minister said, “This movie is based on the ‘Holey Artisan’ attack in Dhaka. During this incident, two of our police offers were killed, and the police, RAB and army suppressed the militants with the utmost bravery. However, in the censor board’s opinion, these parts of the incident were not depicted properly in the movie.”
Dr Mahmud noted that the censor board had requested for these scenes to be added to the film, and that some of them had then been added, but it was still not enough. “If all of these scenes are added to the movie, then I think the censor board will not have a problem giving a clearance certificate to the movie,” added the minister.
Earlier, the Wildlife Crime Control Unit had filed a petition with the court, seeking to withdraw the case filed against Mejbaur Rahman Sumon. Dipankar Bar, senior publication officer of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, mentioned this in a press release on August 28.
