AP bans screening of The Da Vinci Code

NDTV: "Andhra Pradesh did not keep its date with The Da Vinci code on Friday.

A day ahead of its scheduled release, the state government banned the movie, saying the controversial film is likely to cause breach of peace and hurt religious sentiments of the Christian and the Muslim community.

The NDTV team asked Andhra Pradesh's Special Chief Secretary Paul Bhuyan why was the ban needed, when the Union government had cleared it for the entire country?

“In a mature society, it perhaps does not matter much. But here, where more illiterate people are there, rural folk are there, normally that will definitely have an impact," said Bhuyan.

Three different Christian organisations had petitioned the Andhra Pradesh governor and chief minister and the government apparently was convinced that it could lead to avoidable communal trouble.

Andhra Pradesh has 70 lakh Christians. While the English and Hindi versions were to be released on Friday, the dubbed version in Telugu would have hit the theatres a few days later."