Pakistan’s Provincial Minister regrets ban on Aamir Khan’s ‘Dangal’

A minister in Pakistan’s Punjab province says she regrets not allowing Aamir Khan’s ‘Dangal’ to release in the country in 2017.

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Maryam Aurangzeb, who is now a senior minister in the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) in Punjab, said she had just become the information minister when “Dangal” was released.

“Yes, if there is one regret that I have when I was the Federal Information Minister, it was banning the screening of ‘Dangal’ in Pakistan,” Aurangzeb said on a popular podcast.

“It was my first meeting with the censor board representatives and information ministry people and they recommended a ban on screening of the film giving some reasons for this,” she added.

Aurangzeb said she approved the ban though she had not seen the film. In those days, the government allowed the release of Indian films in Pakistan.

“One and half year later, I got a chance to see the film and I realised my decision to approve the ban was wrong. It was a film which was inspirational for our girls and was close to home,” she said.

Though Indian films and actors remain hugely popular in Pakistan, the government has placed a ban on their screening in the country since 2019.

Indian films were screened in Pakistani cinemas between 2008 to 2019 and did excellent business. Since the ban, dozens of cinema houses have gone out of business and are struggling to survive on Hollywood movies as the production quality of Pakistani films remains very low.