MUMBAI: Owing to the wide spread criticism and legal actions including a FIR, Ali Abbas Zafar, director and co-producer of controversial web series Tandav has agreed to make changes in his political drama which started streaming from January 15, on OTT major Amazon Prime Video.

Zafar took to Twitter to release a statement expressing his regret and informing about the changes he proposes to make. 

Zafar said in his statement, “We have utmost respect for the sentiments of the people of our country. We did not intend to hurt or offend the sentiments of any individual, caste, community, race, religion or religious beliefs or insult or outrage any institution, political party or person, living or dead. The cast & crew of Tandav have made the decision to implement changes to the web series to address the concerns raised towards the same. We thank the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for the guidance & support in the matter. We once again apologize if the series has unintentionally hurt anybody’s sentiments.” 

Apart from criticism from political parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for allegedly mocking Hindu Gods and hurting sentiments of Hindus and by other parties for being anti-Dalit the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had also taken a stern stand regarding some portions of the show and had asked for immediate explanation from producers and the OTT platform. 

A FIR has also been lodged at Hazratganj police station on Monday under various sections of the IPC and the IT Act naming Aparna Purohit, head of Amazon's India Original Content, producer of the series Himanshu Krishna Mehra, director Ali Abbas Zafar and Gaurav Solanki the writer, and a team of four officers are likely to meet them for further investigation.

The nine episodes series, Tandav, has a lead cast comprising of Saif Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia, Kumud Mishra, Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub, Gauahar Khan, Anup Soni among others and revolves around political events and students politics.