Raees makers play safe, chop down Mahira Khan's role to a reasonably great extent

Mumbai: If not entirely, but Mahira’s role in her debut film ‘Raees’ has been trimmed down to a reasonably great extent. According to a leading tabloid, a romantic scene and a song has been chopped out from the film.

After the Uri attacks, that saw 18 Indian soldiers losing their lives to brutal act of terrorism, the right-wing activists had imposed a ban on Pakistani artists working in Indian films. As a result of this ban, ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ actor Fawad Khan, who, along with other Pakistani actors, had to leave India in haste.

Fawad’s involvement created a huge furore prompting the makers to keep him away from promotions. And it is probably the heightened tension between the two neighbouring nations that has led the ‘Raees’ team to trim down Mahira’s part.

Earlier this year, both Mahira and SRK had shot in Bhuj, Ahmedabad and Mumbai. Contrary to reports, Shah Rukh is currently shooting his opening scene in Mumbai without his on-screen lady love. The Pakistani star will not come back for any shoots.

As per reports, Mahira had two songs in the movie but will only be seen in one. A romantic scene between SRK and Mahira has also been edited out of the film.

“Mahira is an attractive and popular Pak actress and Raees is her big-ticket Bollywood launch. But while she does play Shah Rukh's love interest, it is not really a romantic film. Her role is like Parveen Babi's in Yash Chopra's 1975 crime-drama Deewaar. This one revolves around the conflict between Shah Rukh Khan who plays a bootlegger, Raees Alam, and ACP Ghulam Patel enacted by Nawaz (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) who is on his trail. So, it wasn't difficult to trim her role which has been done with the intention of not hurting public sentiment,” informed a source to a leading daily.