An impressive, star-studded gathering at the inauguration of the 28th Kolkata International Film Festival here on Thursday evening was taken by a bit of surprise, when Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan, usually known for dodging political issues, suddenly referred to issues like "civil liberties" and "freedom of expression".

However, before making those references, which the Big B restricted to a single sentence, he carefully prepared the ground for making them. He started the speech referring to the incidents of creating communal divides and imposing censorship of the-then British rulers during the pre-independence era. At a point of time, when the audience was wondering where the megastar was leading to, he suddenly raised the issue of how questions are still raised on civil liberties and freedom of expression.