Pakistan bans Indian Hindu- Muslim romance film

Pakistan has banned Bollywood film Raanjhanaa about the love affair of
a Muslim-Hindu couple on the
grounds that it could offend viewers in the
conservative Islamic republic, officials said
Friday.

Raanjhanaa was scheduled for release in June, but Pakistan's Film Censor Board
refused to clear it for cinema showings.

"The censor board did not clear this movie
because of its controversial story," Arshad
Ali, a senior government official and
chairman of the board, told AFP.

While a huge array of Western and
Bollywood films can be bought over the
counter on pirated DVD in Pakistan, the
censor board routinely bans productions
deemed too sensitive for cinemas. Pakistani movie distributors boycotted
Hollywood film Zero Dark Thirty about the hunt for Osama bin Laden,
who was killed
by US troops in Pakistan on May 2, 2011 to
the country's humiliating.

In 2012, Pakistan banned Agent Vinod,
India's answer to James Bond in which an
Indian secret agent thwarts Pakistani
spies from detonating a nuclear bomb in
Delhi.

In 2010, censors also refused permission
for Indian film Tere bin Laden, which poked fun at bin Laden. The board claimed
it would incite suicide attacks.