MUMBAI: An Indian film festival dropped a Pakistani film from its programme on Monday after protesters threatened to disrupt the screening — the latest movie to fall foul of heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Organisers of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival said they would not show the 1959 classic Jago Hua Savera following a complaint from an Indian NGO called Sangharsh.

Sangharsh had said it was inappropriate to show the film, which was Pakistan’s official Oscars entry in 1960, following an attack allegedly by militants that killed 19 Indian soldiers in held Kashmir.

“Given the current situation, the Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival with Star has decided not to programme Jago Hua Savera as part of the Restored Classics Section,” organisers of the festival said in a statement.

The move comes after a group of Indian cinemas said last week that they would not screen any films featuring Pakistani artists in protest against the raid on an army base in India-held Kashmir last month.

The ban by India’s Cinema Owners and Exhibitors Association (COEA) applies to single screen cinemas in four states and is likely to affect the forthcoming release of movies Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Dear Zindagi and Raees.

The ban came as Hindu nationalist groups pile pressure on the makers of Ae Dil Hai Mushkil to drop Pakistani actor Fawad Khan from the romantic drama.

The fringe but noisy rightwing group Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has threatened to stall the Oct 28 release of the movie.

Following the alleged militant attack, the Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association, which represents a number of Hindi film industry employees, passed a motion banning Pakistani artists until relations between New Delhi and Islamabad improve. MAMI runs from Oct 20-27.

Jago Hua Savera, a black and white film, tells the story of a fishing village near Dhaka, now the capital of Bangladesh.

Our Staff Reporter in Karachi adds: Raja Rizwan, a journalist by profession and a mine of information about movies in the subcontinent, said it was a brainchild of Faiz, who floated the idea of a movie depicting the everyday struggle of fishermen in Bangladesh — then East Pakistan.

“Faiz Sahab had not just written the screenplay of this movie,” he said. “He floated the idea and penned the screenplay, dialogues and lyrics of its songs. He remained involved in the production and postproduction processes of the film and assisted in direction as well. It all started in 1956 with the idea of Faiz Sahab and three years to complete to get released in 1959.”

Mr Rizwan said that though the film could not become a box office success, it was one of the masterpieces of cinematography and direction as services of a British cameraman were hired for that particular project and had won applause from film critiques and global cinema forums.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2016