An Imam, who appeared in a small role in Vishal Bhardwaj's Kashmir-set film Haider, has been sacked by the management committee of the mosque over a marriage scene.
Ghulam Hassan Shah claimed he was tricked into performing the nikah scene in the Bollywood film and has now sent a legal notice to Mr Bhardwaj, also the producer of the movie, demanding an apology and Rs 50 lakh in compensation.
Mr Shah, a resident of Qazigund in Anantnag district, had been leading the prayers at a mosque in Nowhatta area of the city for the past eight years.
"The management committee of the mosque sacked me. I was tricked as I was told that the footage will be used for educational purposes. I did not know that it was being used in the movie," he told PTI.
The 65-year-old man has engaged a lawyer and sent a legal notice to Mr Bhardwaj.
"You had told my client that the footage of the nikah reading ceremony would be used for educational purposes. But you really intended to utilise the footage for Haider, which to the least is obnoxious," Mr Shah's lawyer Firdous Ahmad said in the notice.
The notice asks Mr Bhardwaj, 49, to publish an apology in the "national press on at least three occasions if the facts stated in the legal notice are accurate".
The notice also demands him to pay Rs 50 lakh in damages to Mr Shah.
Haider, starring Shahid Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, Tabu, Kay Kay Menon and based on William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet, is set amidst the early days of militancy in Kashmir. The film hit theatres on October 2 last year.
