Aiyaary gets the censor certificate at last; film certified U/A

Amidst all the chatter around Padmaavat and Pad Man, one, perhaps, lost track of how Neeraj Pandey's Aiyaary was faring.

The filmmakers had to dump their earlier Republic Day release plan and push it back to 9 February, when they hoped they would have no competition.

However, Akshay Kumar's Pad Man was then shifted from 25 January to 9 February. The makers of Aiyaary, meanwhile, were forced to shift the release once again as the defence ministry had some reservations and sought some modifications.

That hiccup is also over now and the film has been cleared for public exhibition with a 'U/A' certificate by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

Lead actor Sidharth Malhotra tweeted a copy of the certificate and thanked the CBFC. 

“We are thankful to the defence ministry, the CBFC, and the ministry of information and broadcasting," co-producer Jayantilal Gada of Popular Entertainment Network, or PEN, said in a text message to Cinestaan.com.

Gada said the CBFC had recommended that the film be first shown to mandarins from the defence ministry. "Happy to know that nothing major has been cut," Gada continued. "The edit is done. There were four or five minor cuts suggested, which were acceptable to us. Finally today we got the censor certificate."

He said the film will now be released on 16 February. The film had aroused the defence ministry’s curiosity as it is based on military intelligence and deals with the subject of espionage.

Directed by Neeraj Pandey, Aiyaary features Malhotra and Manoj Bajpyaee as army intelligence officers. Going by the trailer, Major Jai Bakshi (Malhotra), fed up with the system, becomes a renegade, and this sets him on a collision course with his mentor Abhay Singh (Bajpayee).