Manto shows stopped and then resumed: Who are cinema halls afraid of?

Nandita Das’ directorial film Manto released on Friday, September 21 in India. It has been showcased in many international film festivals and has been lauded as good cinema by film critics around the world. But to the audiences’ dismay, the film opened in India to very few screenings, as news came of Manto not being shown by some cinema halls came. Senior journalist Nikhil Wagle took to Twitter to share the information. He shared a report from a news website which quoted the cinema citing ‘pressure from higher authorities’ and then some ‘technical glitch’:

Director Nandita Das shared her disappointment at the news saying that six long years went into making the film and it is facing such hurdles:

The popular RJ Sayema too shared her disappointment at seeing so few shows of the film in theatres:

But by late afternoon, the reports of its shows being resumed started coming. All this flutter and confusion on Manto’s screening made many fans wonder whether it was because this is a film which is centred on a sensitive issue of Partition and a Muslim writer faced with the trauma and cases of vulgarity over his writing about Partition: