Guawahti: Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday announced the movie ‘The Kashmir Files’ tax free.
After Uttarakhand, Tripura, Karnataka, Goa and Madhya Pradesh UP became the sixth state to declare the movie tax free.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath twitted in Hindi”#TheKashmirFiles film has been made tax-free in Uttar Pradesh.”
The movie stars Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumar, Mithun Chakraborty and Pallavi Joshi among others.
The film chronicles the departure of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley in the 1990s, written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri and produced by Zee Studios.
In a Hindi tweet, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, who saw the film in Lucknow, stated, “#TheKashmirFiles is a film about the suffering and injury of Kashmiri Hindus. It is a documentary based on genuine events. After witnessing the film yesterday (Monday), I believe that it deserves to be seen by a larger audience.”
Maurya further praised the state government’s decision to make the film tax-free in another tweet.
It may be mentioned that several BJP-ruled states exempted the film from taxation on Monday, even as a war of words erupted between the saffron party and its opponents over the problem of Kashmiri Pandits fleeing the Valley. While Karnataka, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh have already exempted the film from the entertainment tax, Tripura and Goa stated on Monday that they will follow suit, as calls rose for it to be exempted across the country.
Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri wrote and directed the film, which was released last week and is based on the flight of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley in the 1990s.