Daily Times

Mission Majnu featuring Sidharth Malhotra as an Indian undercover agent in Pakistan was released on Netflix on January 20.

Days after the film’s release, Pakistan saw a major power outage, which affected most of the country’s 220 million citizens. Netizens had then taken to Twitter to share hilarious memes and conspiracy theories about the Indian spy thriller.

Although power has been gradually restored across Pakistan, the question of overcoming frequent blackouts and load-shedding still bother many in the country. To cope with the frequent cuts and recent power outage, many took to Twitter to share hilarious Mission Majnu memes, with some blaming Sidharth Malhotra’s Amandeep Ajitpal Singh (Aman), a RAW agent, who becomes Tariq Hussain in Pakistan, during a secret mission.

Since Mission Majnu’s trailer came out last year, many have slammed the film for the stereotypical depiction of Pakistanis in the film. Sidharth’s undercover mission in Mission Majnu was to investigate the nuclear plant Pakistan was building. Now, some are joking that Sidharth’s Amandeep may have accidentally targeted an electric power plant instead of the nuclear plant. A person tweeted with a poster of Sidharth from Mission Majnu, “Nuclear power plant udane gya tha, electric power plant uda ke aagya (he came to blow up the nuclear plant, instead he targeted the electric plant).”

After a Pakistan minister reportedly spoke about the recent power outage and said the government suspected ‘foreign intervention’, some Twitter users floated hilarious conspiracy theories, claiming Mission Majnu was successful. A person tweeted, “Aisa lagta hai Mission Majnu ko promote karney ke liye blackout kia hai (it seems the blackout was created to promote Mission Majnu).” Another tweet read, “Power outage? Mission Majnu successful?”

After Sidharth Malhotra-starrer Mission Majnu was released, it was criticised by a section of audiences for stereotyping people from the other side of the border in the film. Pakistani actor Adnan Siddiqui, who recently watched Mission Majnu, slammed it in an Instagram post. Apart from criticising the film for ‘misrepresentation’ of Pakistanis, Adnan called the film ‘distasteful’ and ‘factually incorrect’ and slammed it for ‘poor story, poorer execution, poorest research’.