Steven Spielberg wants to make film on ex Pak PM Gilani’s son rescue

Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg has offered to make a movie on the abduction and recovery of former Pakistani premier Yousaf Raza Gilani’s son Ali Haider, who was rescued from Al Qaeda-linked abductors in Afghanistan this week.

Spielberg made the offer to make a movie during a telephone conversation with Ali Haider, Gilani was quoted as saying by Dawn newspaper on Friday. “Mr Spielberg telephoned Haider and made the offer on Thursday,” Gilani said.

Read: Former Pak PM Yousaf Gilani’s son rescued 3 years after abduction

Ali Haider was kidnapped in May 2013 in his home town of Multan while he was campaigning for Pakistan’s last general election. He was rescued after nearly three years in captivity during a joint operation by US and Afghan forces in Gaylan district of Afghanistan on Tuesday. Four Al Qaeda-linked operatives were killed during the raid.

Gialni also said his son plans to write a book and may accept the offer to work for the Hollywood film based on his captivity and “miraculous” release. Though the notes Ali Haider made during his captivity in Afghanistan have been lost, his “painful memory” of the period is very much alive in his mind, he said.

“My son plans to write a book on the ordeal he had gone through in three years (of) captivity of militants,” Gilani said. “My son had written a manuscript for a book detailing his ordeal in captivity but it was burnt by his captors. But he intends to pen down what he had gone through during the period. PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also encouraged him to write a book about his ordeal,” he said.

Gilani said US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had also telephoned him and congratulated him on the return of his son. “I told her that militants kidnapped my son to punish me for launching a military operation in Malakand division. I also thanked her for US forces’ help in Haider’s release. Clinton promised me she would invite me to the White House if she was elected president,” he said.