Earlier in the day, Bollywood Hungama revealed that Sunny Deol’s much awaited film, Lahore 1947, has been renamed as Batwara. We have now learned that the rights to the title rested with the family of late producer Salim Akhtar and Aamir Khan secured its rights from them.

EXCLUSIVE: How Lahore 1947 became Batwara – Aamir Khan’s personal meeting with Salim Akhtar’s family sealed the deal

A source told Bollywood Hungama, “The team of the film was clear that they didn’t want to name the film Lahore 1947. They locked Batwara 1947 at first. But then they all came to the conclusion that the film should be titled simply as Batwara. However, removing 1947 and simply retaining Batwara would mean securing the title rights.”

The source continued, “The team learned that Salim Akhtar’s family had the rights to the title since the producer had made Batwara (1989). Veteran filmmaker Karim Morani helped in arranging the meeting between Aamir Khan and Salim Akhtar’s son Samad. In fact, Aamir went to Samad’s house and even met his mother and Salim saab’s wife, Shama.”

The source further said, “The meeting was very fruitful. Aamir told the family about his wonderful experience of working with Salim Akhtar in Baazi (1995). He also informed them about his film and how the title Batwara is apt for the subject. The Akhtar family understood his point of view and thus, they sold the rights for a certain amount to Aamir.”

Interestingly, on March 8, Samad Akhtar uploaded a picture of himself posing with Aamir Khan. In the caption, he mentioned that the superstar visited his house and that the latter amazed him with deep passion and knowledge about cricket. Samad even presented him with a jersey of his sports shop, 7S Sports World.

The 1989 film Batwara was directed by J P Dutta of Border (1997) and Refugee (2000) fame and starred Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna, Dimple Kapadia, Amrita Singh, Poonam Dhillon, Mohsin Khan, Shammi Kapoor and Asha Parekh.

As for Aamir Khan’s Batwara, the partition saga reunites Sunny Deol and Rajkumar Santoshi. Aamir will also be seen in the film in a supporting role and it also stars Preity Zinta, Ali Fazal, Karan Deol and Shabana Azmi.

Also Read: SCOOP: Batwara’s special promo, featuring Sunny Deol and Karan Deol, expected to be unveiled on Father’s Day