The shooting of Bollywood star Emraan Hashmi’s biopic Azhar, based on the life of the Hyderabadi star cricketer Azharuddin, was disrupted by the OU students. Yesterday, the unit of Azhar, including Emraan and heroine Lara Dutta, was in the OU campus to shoot several important court scenes inside the historic Arts College premises.
Soon, scores of students rushed to the shooting spot and disrupted the shooting alleging that no shooting for a commercial film will be entertained on campus. Incidentally, the students were divided into two groups as one group supported the shoot and the other protesting against it. This even led to a minor scuffle between both the student groups. Even Emraan Hashmi’s efforts in calming the students down went in vain.
Apparently, the film’s unit took prior permission with the help of the campus student organizations Daruvu and Telangana Udyama Chaitanya Vedika from the concerned authorities and even paid Rs. 50,000 towards location hiring charges. With the cancellation of the shoot, the unit suffered a huge loss to the tune of 30 lakhs. Reports quoted a unit member saying that the students even demanded a large amount of money to let the shooting continue.
On the other hand, the OU Registrar Prof E. Suresh Kumar said that the permission was given for shooting a documentary titled ‘Azharuddin – The Pride of Telangana’. The Registrar further said that necessary action will be taken on the film’s unit if their is found out to be a commercial film instead of a documentary.