The CBFC has reportedly removed all references to Kashmir in Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible - Fallout

The Central Board of Film Certification has cut out overt references to Kashmir in Mission: Impossible - Fallout, the sixth film in Tom Cruise’s action series. It was previously reported that director Christopher McQuarrie had set the film’s final act in Kashmir because he wanted to make a more ‘politically complex’ film.

However, the version of the film released in Indian theatres has no mention of Kashmir - there are noticeable cuts in the final act of the film, and no title card identifies the location, which the film had routinely been doing so far. While providing some exposition, Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust makes a passing reference to the Nubra Valley and the Siachen glacier, but never is the word Kashmir mentioned.

“We would have loved to come to India to shoot the film. We couldn’t shoot the aerial sequence (helicopter chase sequence) in India. It was a little too crazy. So, we ended up in New Zealand. But I scouted India extensively and I would love to come to India and shoot a film,” McQuarrie had previously told IANS.

A Quint report previously said that the CBFC had removed references to Kashmir, although the majority of the action remains intact. In fact, the Indian Army gets a mention too. The Kashmir territory has long been involved in violence and is a controversial subject in India and Pakistan.

Ethan Hunt and his crew arrive in Kashmir to stop Solomon Lane’s plan of unleashing a nuclear attack on the region, which connects three of the most populous countries in the world, and therefore likely to claim the most casualties.

The film has received the best reviews of the series so far - it holds a 98% ‘fresh’ rating on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.