For the past few days, we have been seeing various issues hitting the Mersal team, just a few days before it's release. The film ran into trouble with the Animal Welfare Board of India when they claimed that they did not issue an NOC for the usage of animals in the movie. We even came across screenshots of conversations between the members of the CBFC. The announcement from Atlee and team that the film has received an U/A certificate seems to be the wake of the issue. For more clarity on this issue, we contacted MM Mathialagan, the CBFC Regional Director and the following is what he had to say;

"We (Examining committee) watch every film as part of the evaluation process. The makers must give a No-Objection Certificate issued by the AWBI (Animal Welfare Board of India) for using animals in the film. So, if they submit the NOC, along with the content of the film, including the visuals featuring the animals, the CBFC will decide to issue the certificate. When everything is under processing, certain things come out due to the curiosity of the people concerned with the film and the words used on the Twitter or FB posts will be misleading sometimes. In their posters, they have said that it is censored with U/A. But how they should have put it is, 'Evaluated but yet to be censored.' Due to this announcement, it has misled everybody. The film has been evaluated at U/A but with conditions. If they fulfill the conditions, the certification can be done. If they announce saying 'Censored,' it comes off as if the certificate has been issued. That has become the problem."

When asked about when we would get clarity on the final decision, he said, "For now, we cannot disclose what the final decision is, as the discussions are still on. The producers will tweet as soon as the issue is sorted".