Aamir Khan speaks to reporters in Mumbai on Monday. (Fotocorp)

New Delhi/Ahmedabad, June 5: The Supreme Court today gave limited relief to Aamir Khan’s Fanaa, allowing theatre owners in Gujarat to ask the government for police protection if they want to show the film but dismissing filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt’s petition that sought its uninterrupted screening.

The film has been released across the country but faced protests in Gujarat after Aamir voiced his support for Medha Patkar’s Narmada Bachao Andolan.

A vacation bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and C.K. Thakker refused to entertain the petition as Bhatt is not a party to the case. “If any exhibitor wants to exhibit the film and wants protection, it can be given,” the judges said.

“You may have the right to see a film but you cannot compel the exhibitor. Let the exhibitor come here.” the bench said.

Gujarat’s multiplex owners today ruled out screening Fanaa.

“The ground situation has stayed the same. Unless Aamir Khan apologises to the people of Gujarat for hurting their sentiments, our stand remains unchanged,” said Chirag Shah, spokesman for the state’s Multiplex Owners’ Association.

“The Narendra Modi government was willing to give security but we did not want to screen the film because of Aamir Khan’s obstinacy.”

Single-screen theatre owners will hold a meeting tomorrow to decide whether or not to screen the film. But they are expected to toe the multiplex association’s line.

Ashok Purohit, the owner of Pulse, a multiplex in Gandhiangar, said: “Now it is too late to exhibit Fanaa. Fanaa is over for Gujarat.”

Advocate Mukul Sinha of the NGO Jan Sangharsh Manch, Bhatt’s co-petitioner, said he was “not disappointed with the court ruling. It is the situation in Gujarat that is disappointing.... The government wants us to believe that it is the voluntary decision of theatre owners not to screen the film. In reality, they are being threatened.”

Amit Thaker, the BJP Yuva Morcha national general secretary who was responsible for the ban, was jubilant. “Just like Aamir Khan is entitled to his opinion, we are free to protest. The protest will continue till Aamir apologises,” he said.

In Mumbai, Aamir refused to apologise and said he would stand by the Narmada campaign.

“I have lots of love and regard for the people of Gujarat and I appeal to them not to get caught in politics. Let them look at me and they would find love in my eyes,” the actor told reporters at his Bandra home.

“I have said whatever the Supreme Court has said earlier. I am a simple man, I do not know to play politics”.

Aamir said he felt “sad” that the people of Gujarat were not being allowed to see his film, adding that the BJP and its youth wing should find a solution as they were behind the theatre owners’ move.

Fanaa’s director Kunal Kohli urged “all theatre owners of Gujarat to come forward and release the film”.

He said his film has lost “approximately Rs 6 to 7 crore of business in Gujarat. However, it’s not about the money... it is about the democratic right of every Indian citizen. Aamir has the right to say what he said. Even the people of Gujarat, who are protesting, have the right to say so in a democratic fashion and not by burning posters and threatening people”.