The biopic on Indian cricketer MS Dhoni, starring Sushant Singh Rajput in lead role, is garnering wide appreciation from the audiences and doing tremendous business at the box office.
But did you know that Pakistani actor Fawad Khan was also a part of this flick? Yes, it’s true. He was supposed to play the character of stylist batsman Virat Kohli but later his role was chopped off.
The reason behind this move was the latest tension between Ind-Pak which surfaced after the Uri attacks in which 19 army men were martyred.
As per media reports, Fawad had shot some crucial scenes with Sushant to showcase the camaraderie between Dhoni and Virat. But just few days before the film's release, protests were started against Pakistani actors and they were asked to leave from India in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
It put director Neeraj Pandey in tight spot, as he was left with two not so favorable options – either keeping Fawad Khan’s scenes intact and see the film suffer or completely remove the trace of the Pak actor’s role from the movie.
Pandey chose the second option as he reportedly wanted to keep his movie away from any sort of controversy.
And guess he has made the right choice by chopping off Fawad Khan’s scenes, else the movie had to face the political rage, and repercussion from various sections.
Though, it’s a bad news for Fawad Khan fans in India who wanted to see more and more of him in Bollywood films. Also, cricketer fans missed to see the warmth that flamboyant cricketers Kohli and Dhoni share in real life.
We wonder how Fawad Khan, who might not know about his role being chopped off, would have reacted to this.
