'Mastram' posters on BEST buses to be altered?

Acting on the Shiv Sena's complaint, BEST has asked Mastram’s makers to delete objectionable lines from posters put up on its buses

A day after Shiv Sena objected to the posters of the film, Mastram, being put up on BEST buses, BEST chairman, Arun Dudhwadkar, has asked the film’s producers to remove some objectionable lines from the posters.

'Mastram' poster on a BEST bus

Arun Dudhwadkar tells hitlist, “We have asked them to delete a Hindi line from the posters which goes something like this: ‘If you don’t know about Mastram, please ask your father and uncle about him’. We felt that these lines would corrupt children’s minds.” However, Dudhwadkar emphasises that they have not asked the makers to withdraw their posters.

It seems that Mastram’s advertising agency had booked around 100 BEST buses for promoting the film. BEST is said to charge around Rs 10,000 per bus; this means that producer Sunil Bohra has already paid them Rs 10 lakh for his film’s promotion. And while Bohra says that he has already made the required changes, a source close to the agency says, “Taking heed of the objections that have been raised, we have now put up white stickers on these buses in order to block out these lines.”

But Akshay Bardapurkar, general secretary, Shiv Sena Chitrapat Sena, insists that he wants the posters to be removed rather than censored. He says, “We have requested the chairman to take strong action against the posters. But now it is BEST’s prerogative to take suitable action as per their rules and regulations.”

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