Two weeks ago, Venus head honcho Ratan Jain was shocked when a well-wisher called to inform him that the Akshay Kumar-Lara Dutta- Govinda starrer Bhagam Bhaag, whose overseas distribution rights belong to him, has hit the theatres in Pakistan. He called up his confidant Al Mansoor in Dubai and asked him to look into the matter immediately.

Recently the Pakistan government has reaffirmed its 40-year-old ban on screening Indian films in the country despite the current Bolllywood infatuation with the Indo-Pak reconciliation movies. Confirming this, Mahesh Bhatt, whose film Gangster was officially released in Pakistan, said that Indian films which are shot in India, are not allowed to be released in Pakistan yet. But things have improved and many Indian films may see the light of day if they have been shot outside Indian and comply with certain other specifications in their storyline. On the basis of that, Bhagam Bhaag should not have been released in Pakistan, but it is. The story apparently is that a guy called Shahid, who had the prints of the film, took some papers to the Pakistani censor board claiming that he had the distribution rights of the film. The Pakistani censor board quickly certified the film, which in turn led to the film's release in theatres. If sources are to believed, then Sunil Darshan's Shakalaka Boom Boom and Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas too hit the theatres in a similar way across the border. The modus operandi is simple. Someone or the other smuggles the print of the film into Pakistan and approaches the Pakistan Censor Board and obtains a release order. The Pakistani Censor Board does not check who holds the distributions rights of the film, which is turn leads to this mess. Jain holds that the matter has been sorted out. But the censor board chairman has admitted that the film is still running in Pakistan and the issue has no been sorted out as yet.