Government turns heat to stop screening of India's Daughter, Leslee Udwin leaves for UK

Reacting sharply to the controversy surrounding documentary film 'India's Daughter', Indian government has put restraining orders on the screening of the film that contains interview of Nirbhaya case rape convict–bus driver, Mukesh Singh.

BBC Four is planning to telecast the film on International Women's Day on March 8.

In a suo motu statement in both the houses of the parliament, union home minister Rajnath Singh said, "Government has taken necessary legal action and obtained a restraining order from the court disseminating the contents of the film."

"Our government condemns the incident of December 16, 2012 in the strongest possible terms and will not allow any attempt by any individual, group or organisation to leverage such unfortunate incidents for commercial benefit. The respect and dignity of women, constitutes a core value of our culture and tradition. Our government remains fully committed to ensuring safety and dignity of women," Singh said.

The information and broadcasting ministry has been asked to see that the restraint orders are not violated. In addition, the union home ministry has also sensitised the ministry of external affairs to ensure through its good offices that the film is not aired or shown abroad.

However, the government has little options and resources to control it, ministry sources said, as we cannot force other countries and mediums like Youtube to adhere to our laws.

British filmmaker Leslee Udwin, who till Tuesday could be seen arguing in favour of the film on various platforms, left for UK, probably, to prevent a likely action against her by the law authorities.

Prima facie, she seems guilty of violating the terms of the undertaking on which she was allowed to visit Tihar jail and interview convict Mukesh Singh. These conditions include no commercial use of the documentary, full unedited version of the film to be shown to the jail authorities and allow any cuts.

Acting on government orders, the Delhi Police has registered an FIR against unknown persons under IPC sections dealing with - gesture or act intended to insult modesty of a woman, statements conducing to create public mischief, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, intent to cause or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public, word, and under the IT Act provisions of punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service.

"Ms. Udwin left for UK this afternoon," said Dibang, co-producer of India's Daughter.

Dibang also said he had no clue if the BBC would telecast the film or not on March 8.

Ministry sources said, prima facie it appears that the filmmaker violated the undertaking that she had given to the Tihar jail authorities.

A No Objection Certificate (NOC) was given to Udiwn and Anjali Bhushan on July 24, 2013 by the union home ministry on conditions that prior approval of jail authorities is to be taken for publishing the research paper or for releasing the documentary film which is being made for purely social purposes without any commercial interest as conveyed and complete unedited footage of shoot in the Tihar Jail premises will be shown to the jail authorities to ensure there is no breach of Prison security.

"The filmmakers did not adhere to the conditions as it is being used for commercial purposes. Neither did they show raw and uncut footage to the authorities," said sources.

Rajnath Singh's statement also seems to suggest this line of argument.

"It came to the notice of the jail authorities that the permission conditions have been violated and hence a legal notice was issued to them on April 7, 2014 to return the unedited footage within 15 days and also not to show the film as it violates the permission conditions."

"Subsequently," Singh said, "the documentary film was shown to the jail authorities where it was noticed that the documentary film depicts the comments of the convict which are highly derogatory and are an affront to the dignity of women. It was also noticed that the film shown was the edited version and not the unedited as per permission conditions."