Pehredaar Piya Ki to go off prime time

The Broadcast Content Complaints Council (BCCC) has told Sony Entertainment Television to push its controversial fiction drama Pehredaar Piya Ki out of the prime time slot. The show currently airs at 8.30 pm and BCCC has asked the channel to shift it to any slot post 10 pm.

Senior officials from the channel confirmed that the show will be taken off prime time and said they are awaiting a formal order from BCCC. Once they get the directive, they will decide on the exact time slot.

At a meeting held on August 16, the BCCC also decided that the channel should run a message at the bottom of the screen, saying it doesn’t promote child marriage.

The channel already runs a disclaimer that says, “This is a work of fiction which is based on a special love story. All the characters, places, names, scenes and incidents shown in this show, along with the cultures and religious traditions are fictional. None of the characters in this show are related to any person dead or alive or any incident; if any, it is completely coincidental. The channel doesn’t intend to promote child marriage or it doesn’t intend to hurt the feelings of any person, community, group or profession.”

A BCCC official on condition of anonymity said, “The decision was taken at our monthly meeting held on August 16. There were representatives from the channel as well. The council has decided to push the show out of prime time so that it is kept out of the reach of children. It has become a matter of child marriage and that is what was upsetting most complainants.”

The BCCC has received over 150 complaints to date about the show. The media also reported that Minister of Information and Broadcasting Smriti Irani asked BCCC to look into the matter.

The show depicts the story of an 18-year-old girl, who gets married to a nine-year-old boy under unavoidable circumstances to protect the boy and his family and wealth. The show has attracted a lot of wrath from the social media users for its child marriage concept.

An online petition that had raised the issue has been signed by over 50,000 people till now.

The producer of the show, Sumeet Mittal, one of the co-founders of Shashi-Sumeet Productions, has been saying that the show is not regressive and that there is more to it than what meets the eye.

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