National Award winning actor and President of Bangladesh Film Artistes' Association, Ilias Kanchan has shunned the recently resigned joint general secretary and actor Symon Sadik's claim of the organisation's ineffectiveness in cessation of simultaneous releases of foreign with Bengali films in a recent remark.

Although Kanchan had officially received and approved Symon's resignation on Saturday, he said in a statement that he does not agree with Symon's claim whatsoever.

In response to the assertions outlined in the resignation letter and Symon's public statements, Kanchan remarked, "I was out of Dhaka for work and I did not know anything about Symon's resignation. I mean there's no point in resigning now as we as a committee should have been considered obsolete if a timely election was held. We are waiting for an election in February and resigning just days before an election does not make any sense."

He continued, "The claim that we did not do anything to stop simultaneous releases is entirely wrong. Actually we are among the 19 organisations that require us to agree to halt the release of foreign films in Bangladeshi theatres. As a joint general secretary, Symon should have complete knowledge about the process, yet he pointed fingers only at us."

"When other Indian films were released simultaneously with other Bengali films in the past, Symon was silent but when it came to be his own film, ('Shesh Bazi') he is making a fuss. This doesn't make his conviction any clearer," an infuriated Kanchan said.

Backing Ilias Kanchan's claims,  actress Nipun Akter, general secretary of the association, said, "Symon's claims are not legit. We don't have any direct authority to halt the release of foreign films. The films are imported because of the SAFTA agreement by the Ministry of Commerce and Bangladesh Film Producers and Distributors Association, and we have nothing to do with their decision."

"Still, we have called a meeting with 18 other associations, and Kanchan bhai himself voted against 'Hubba's' release yet the decision was made to release the film on Jaaz Multimedia and its chairman Abdul Aziz's undue influence. I have no idea why Symon is holding us accountable for a decision we didn't have any part in," said Nipun.

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Nipun Akter additionally mentioned that, due to the influence of Abdul Aziz, Khorshed Alam Khosru, the former president of the Bangladesh Film Artistes' Association and the convener of the 19th committee for film organizations, is expected to request the removal of Abdul Aziz from the committee. Given these circumstances, Nipun raised suspicions about Symon's abrupt resignation.

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"We have submitted a letter to the Bangladesh Film Producers and Distributors Association and called on a prompt meeting to confront Abdul Aziz and ask for a reason behind his decision to release 'Hubba' without their official approval. If he fails to answer convincingly we will surely take regulatory measures against him," said Khosru.