Naam Shabana director Shivam Nair, Pink writer Ritesh Shah to make biopic on Uzma Ahmed

Earlier this year, the Ministry of External Affairs, led by Sushma Swaraj, rescued Indian national Uzma Ahmed from a forced marriage to Pakistani national Tahir Ali and brought her back to India.

Now, this real life story has caught the attention of a couple of filmmakers who are keen on turning it into a biopic. Pune Mirror reports that Shivam Nair, who made his directorial debut with the action thriller Naam Shabana earlier this year, has already started writing the script along with Ritesh Shah, who wrote the National Award-winning film, Aniruddha Roy Choudhary’s courtroom drama Pink, last year.

The same report quotes Nair as saying, “It is a story that needs to be told in today’s times. Her journey from Malaysia to Pakistan and finally to India is inspirational and courageous.” Uzma has given her nod to the project and has agreed to be involved in every stage of the film production. The same report quotes her as saying, “It’s been a long journey and I’m involved in every aspect of the story because I have faced all this for real.”

The Indian Express reports that filmmaker Dhiraj Kumar is also planning a biopic on Ahmed and even announced that Tabu will play the role of Swaraj in the film. However, the same report quotes Tabu, who has denied being a part of the project, as saying, “I have no idea why filmmakers who have not approached me give out false news of my being approached for their movies when I have not even been contacted or made aware of a certain project. This has also happened in the past. In fact, in some cases, some really big and established production houses have taken the liberty of using my name for a project without as much as my consent.”