‘Why mute half the abuses?’ Actor Deepak Tijori questions CBFC’s censorship of Dhurandhar: The Revenge

The craze around Dhurandhar refuses to die down. Amid the praises and historic box office numbers, actor-director Deepak Tijori has pointed out a glaring issue with the Censor Board's policy of 'half-muting' abusive words in theatrical versions. Tijori took to social media to point out the Censor Board’s inability to censor the cuss words.

Since there is no regulation by the CBFC over OTT platforms, the first part of Dhurandhar is available on the OTT without the muted cuss words and impacting children at large, argued Deepak Tijori.

What Deepak Tijori wrote about Censor board and Dhurandhar

In a long Instagram post, Deepak Tijori said he is left confused as to why the Censor Board keeps cuss words half-muted instead of fully muting them.

"Maybe I just don't have the kind of intellect that the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) or its board members possess. Because I genuinely don't understand this – why mute half the abuses and let the other half stay? At places, keep some and fully mute others?

"Especially when the film is already certified 18+, which clearly means it's meant for adults. So who exactly are we protecting here? And from what... half a word?

"And then comes the part that really confuses me – the same film, within a month or two, releases on OTT... completely unmuted... untouched... exactly as it was meant to be.

"And that's where kids end up watching it... at home... sitting with family... with everything fully audible,” the actor wrote

"So I'm just trying to understand, honestly – how smart is it to 'half mute' something in theatres for adults, when the same thing plays out in full volume at home soon after? Maybe there's a logic here I'm unable to see... or maybe, just maybe... we're overthinking the wrong things," Deepak Tijori added.

What cuts did the CBFC demand from makers of Dhurandhar

As per the certification report, the CBFC suggested 4 out of 21 major modifications, all involving visuals of extreme violence. These include reductions in moments described as "smashing the eye", "beheading and kicking", "hitting the head with a cement block", and "hitting the head with a hammer".

The report also noted that dates of demonetisation in the subtitles were corrected, and "Lahore" was replaced with "Delhi" in the information text.

The CBFC granted the film an ‘A’ certificate, with a final runtime in India of 3 hours, 49 minutes, and 36 seconds.

The version submitted to the CBFC was approximately 3 hours and 51 minutes. With the board's additional cuts of around 1.3 minutes, the domestic version is now more than 6 minutes shorter than the overseas cut, which has a 3-hour and 55-minute runtime.

Read: Dhurandhar: The Revenge review - It's a Ranveer Singh show but the brutal violence goes too far

About Dhurandhar 2

Dhurandhar, released in December 2025, emerged as the year's highest-grossing film and the top earner in a single language. In Dhurandhar 2, which released earlier this month, Ranveer Singh, Arjun Rampal, R. Madhavan, and Sanjay Dutt reprise their roles. The film gives a backstory of Ranveer’s character and also shows how he becomes the underworld king in Lyaari post Rehman Dacait’s death.