I never intended to make film on 26/11 when I visited Taj: Ram Gopal Varma

Ram Gopal Varma created a nation wide furor when he accompanied Riteish Deshmukh along with his then CM dad Vilasrao Deshmukh to visit the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai soon after the horrific 26/11 terror attacks in 2008. 4 years after that incident, RGV is ready to unveil the first look of his new film The Attacks of 26/11 at a function in Mumbai today evening. However, the maverick filmmaker still maintains that when he visited Taj, he had no intention whatsoever to make a film on the terror attacks.

RGV tweeted yesterday, "I am launching the first look of my film 'The attacks of 26/11' at Nehru auditorium tomorrow the 23rd at 6 pm ...apart from the media we are also inviting the policemen who were involved with those attacks and also survivors of the victims.

In this context and in spite of it not being relevant to the film by itself, I just wanted to clarify my position on the controversy surrounding the highly criticized visit of mine to the Taj after the attacks of 26/11... the allegation of my seeming insensitivity towards the incident came out of a speculation that the late Vilasraoji facilitated my visit to the Taj, for me to have access to unseen views, in view of me casting Riteish in a film that I was planning to do on those attacks. That speculation was completely baseless because of the following reasons:

1. What could I have possibly seen at that place what the media had not already been showing ever since the attacks began?

2. If I am accused of wanting to cast Riteish, then my question is "Would I have cast him as a terrorist or a cop or what? And this too, at a time when no one including the police knew what or who was behind the attacks".

... contd.

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