‘Akira’: CBFC Tones Down Violence Against Sonakshi’s Character

The CBFC demands for Sonakshi Sinha’s ‘Akira’ to tone down violence against its female protagonist.

Ironically Murugadoss’s Akira, which is a film about women empowerment, has been asked by the censor board to tone down the violence against its female protagonist played by Sonakshi Sinha.

Akira is about this rebellious girl from a middle-class home who is sent to a remand home for standing up to a bully at a young age. That’s where Sonakshi’s character is initiated into a world of crime. The film has lots of scenes of gruesome violence. But it also has a very positive message on how important it is for girls today today to learn self-defence. So the censor board has allowed much of the violence to remain. But two scenes of violence had to be chopped off.

A source close to the development

Apparently a scene showing Sonakshi’s character being tortured by the villain, played by director Anurag Kashyap, had to be heavily toned down.

The violence in the sequence showing Sonakshi’s torture was graphic brutal and unbearable. If the censor board allowed it they’d have to grant Akira an ‘A’ certificate, which would have deprived the film of its younger audiences. The censor board felt the film must be viewed by young girls to appreciate the need for self-preservation. So the scene of Sonakshi’s violence has been seriously toned down.

A source

Another scene to have been chucked out of the film is a fight sequence between Sonakshi and the goons, where she is kicked in the stomach.

That was a complete no-no for the censor board. Director Murugadoss was sternly reminded that Akira was not like his Ghajini. Brutalizing the heroine won’t work here.

A source