Pressure from Dawood Ibrahim’s quarters makes films fall in line

The decision to change Dawood Ibrahim’s name in Sanjay Gupta’s Shootout At Wadala was taken most reluctantly. Apparently, Gupta was adamant on retaining Dawood’s name as Dawood and his brother’s name as Sabir. However, after getting those ominous calls from Dubai, the rest of the film’s team thought the better of it.

And now we hear, Nikhil Advani has also decided to play it safe. He has decided to change Dawood’s name in his film D Day on counter-terrorism.

Says one of Advani’s actors, “Nikhil’s original plan about his film on a group of RAW agents bringing Dawood back from Pakistan to India by road, was to make D Day, ‘D’ being  a pun on Dawood, with Rishi Kapoor playing Dawood right up front with no names camouflaged. But now with Sanjay Gupta changing Sonu Sood’s character from Dawood to Dilawar, the pressure on Nikhil Advani has also grown. He has decided to change Dawood’s name thereby diluting the impact of the political political drama.”

The pressure to change actor Sonu Sood’s name from Dawood Ibrahim to Dilawar Khan in   SAW came from the people concerned themselves. According to very reliable source from the team, “Key members of the SAW team received polite but firm calls asking what was the need to name Dawood in the film? The people who called were polite. But their tone clearly implied that no refusal to alter Dawood’s name would be entertained. Though Sanjay Gupta was still determined to retain Dawood’s name he had to give into pressure and change Dawood’s name to Dilawar.”

However, we now hear that efforts are still on in SAW to call a spade a spade, and Dawood a Dawood.

Confirming these developments Sonu Sood who plays Dawood says, “It’s unfortunate that we had to change my character’s name. But anyone can see that Manoj and I play Dawood and his brother Sabir. Though we’ve had to change my name from Dawood to Dilawar, the way the characters mouth the name clearly suggests that it’s Dawood they are talking about. Both Sanjay Gupta and I are very keen to retain my character’s name. But there are legal problems because some changes have been made in my character’s life-history that may not tally with the reality.”

As things stand Sood is fighting a hard battle get back his name in SAW.

“It doesn’t make sense. Manya Surve is Manya Surve in the film. So what sense does it make to change Dawood to Dilawar? I leave the final decision to the producers,” says Sonu Sood currently recovering from a fractured ankle that is taking longer than he expected.