Angry Shaktiman says DD was unfair

NEW DELHI, FEB 20: A day after Prasar Bharati ate humble pie and screened Shaktiman, having issued an order to take it off the air on Friday, its angry star and producer, Mukesh Khanna, said DD took the decision under pressure from NGOs who are writing letters only on “the basis of reports in newspapers”. DD, he said, “had realised its mistake, which is why they did not terminate my serial”. While DD sources insisted that the decision had been taken on Friday morning and the producer was only being given “some time to wind up”, Khanna said he had not been informed of any such move. “DD has to be convinced before it takes a decision on my serial,” he said. Clearly, such conviction was lacking because despite a written order, the serial was telecast on Saturday at 11 am.

Khanna said he would also be “putting pressure” on UNI for “publishing false stories” about the negative impact of the serial. “In the case of Kota, Begusarai and Nashik, UNI got it wrong,” he repeated, reading from the reportfiled by the Globe Detective Agency which he had hired to investigate the burning of nine-year-old Dinesh Prabhakar Chaudhury in Nashik. He said the police insisted the boy , had not even heard of Shaktiman. Khanna has also received public support from Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan who said his serial highlighted positive messages.