MUMBAI: John Abraham starrer ‘Shootout at Wadala’ has been banned in several areas in Punjab including Amristar, Jalandhar, Moga, Ludhiana and Bhatinda, say reports. 

Balaji Telefilms’ ‘Shootout at Wadala’ has been attracting a lot of controversy since it was announced for release this May 2013. Initially, the only concern of the director and the producer was with the certification of the film. The movie was passed with an ‘A’ certification. There were no visuals cut.

Although, the film was given a clean chit for visual content, the excessive use of  language was asked to be toned down. Dialogues spoken by John Abraham, Tusshar Kapoor and Manoj Bajpayee were asked to be changed. The censor board was quite strict with their final word.

Despite all odds, the film made its place in one of the top openers of the year at the box office.

The latest controversy to hit the movie is the ban in theatres of Punjab. The movie has been banned in several areas including Amristar, Jalandhar, Moga, Ludhiana and Bhatinda.

The cause cited for was that certain dialogues in the film have offended the ‘Bharatiya Valmiki Dharam Samaj’ community. The national director of the Bharatiya Valmiki Dharam Samaj was quite enraged and he has sent a notice to producer Ekta Kapoor.

“They should think twice before stating anything against Valmikiji. Such dialogues can bring repercussions to the whole nation”, director of the outfit spoke to the media.

“In one dialogue, an actor has used wrong language for Valmikiji by saying har chor Valmiki nai hota and in another dialogue John Abraham says, Eklavya ne pura anghutha diya tha main pura haath de dunga. Once these are censored, we have no objection to the movie,” said Deepak Hans, President of Dr Ambedkar Ekta Mission.

Shows were cancelled on orders of Police Commissioner Ishwar Singh and DC Rahul Tewari of the state.