MUMBAI: Bollywood fillmmaker Ram Gopal Verma, who is shooting a movie based on the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack faced protests from the youth wing of the Samajwadi Party’s Maharashtra unit Saturday.
Nearly 200 Samajwadi Youth Party (SYP) activists led by their president Abu Farhan Azmi shouted slogans and waved black flags near Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel which was the main centre of 2008 Mumbai terror attack.
“When we asked the local police how the movie was being shot on actual locales on Mumbai streets in the wee hours today (Saturday), we were informed that no permissions have been given to Verma to shoot anywhere,” said Azmi.
Accusing Ram Gopal Verma of going back on his four-year old promise of not making a movie on the terror attacks, Azmi said that now former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh is no more, the director has decided to make money out the sorrows of hundreds of victims and martyrs of the terror attacks.
“We have demanded that (Ram Gopal) Verma must not shoot anywhere on actual locales of the terror attacks and mock the Mumbaikars, he can shoot in studios if he is so keen on the movie,” Azmi added.
The SYP has also demanded that since he has failed to keep his word to the late Deshmukh about “never making a movie” on the terror attacks, he must make a commitment to donate all the profits of the movie to the victims and survivors of the terror incident.
“We also want that he may make and release his movie only after the sole surviving terrorist, Ajmal Kasab is hanged. Nobody should be allowed to glorify a terrorist or terror acts by immortalising them on film,” Azmi said, threatening to intensify the party’s agitation.
Incidentally, Ram Gopal Verma had shot to the headlines when he visited the terror-ravaged Taj hotel a couple of days after the attacks. But, at that time, he scotched all speculation and said he would never make a movie on the terror attacks theme.
