'HAQ SHOULD START A CONVERSATION'

Bollywood actor Emraan Hashmi believes the job of an artist is to spark discussion with their work

- SUPRIYA SOGLE

The job of an artist is to spark discussion with their work and that is what Bollywood star Emraan Hashmi hopes to do with his upcoming movie 'Haq, a courtroom drama inspired by the Shah Bano Begum case of 1985. Directed by Suparn Varma, the film dramatises the events surrounding the landmark Mohd Ahmed Khan vs Shah Bano Begum case, as depicted in Jigna Vora's book 'Bano: Bharat Ki Beti.

The legal battle started in 1978 when Shah Bano was divorced by her lawyer husband and reached the Supreme Court in 1985. It ended with a judgment by a five-judge Constitution bench of the apex court that ruled that Muslim women were also entitled to maintenance under the law.

The film features Yami Gautam as Shazia Bano and Hashmi as her husband, Lawyer Abbas Khan. Though the film narrates a story from the 1970s and 1980s, Hashmi said the issue is still quite relevant.