Pune’s Symbiosis College had decided to screen the Kashmiri filmmaker Sanjay Kak’s documentary ‘Jashna-e-Azadi’ from February 3 to 5 in a session that means to showcase art, culture and literature of Kashmir, but this has postponed due to objection by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and other right-wing organizations.

They are protesting against the documentary ‘Jashna-e-Azadi’ at a three-day festival-cum-seminar ‘Voices of Kashmir’ as it shows the Indian armed forces fighting in Kashmir in bad light and the militants in the Valley as “heroes” that would once again fresh out the bad memories at the time of attacks on Kashmir and never acceptable.

Talking to Media, Shailendra Dalvi, the Joint Secretary of ABVP said, “The film ‘Jashn-e-Azadi’ which was to be screened at the festival shows how Indian Army is committing atrocities in the Valley. The militants are being depicted as heroes. That is the reason why the students’ union has opposed it.”

Pressuring with a great force by the students union and right-wing groups along with Police demand of not processing documentary due to fear of violence, the college authorities has decided to postponed the festival after held a meeting with ABVP.

Announcing the postponement of festival, Dr Hrishikesh Sonam, the principal of Symbiosis Arts and Commerce College said,”After objections were raised by several groups, we decided not to screen the documentary. I won’t call it giving in to the pressure. It is not true. We thought the controversy would end there. But unfortunately, it didn’t. So we decided to postpone the festival.”