Director Rohit Shetty defends showing Muslim villains in ‘Sooryavanshi’

Indian filmmaker Rohit Shetty has reacted to criticism over portraying Muslims as villains in his latest venture Sooryavanshi.

Talking to The Quint, Shetty addressed the ‘bad-Muslim, good-Muslim’ discussion around the cop-drama asking, “Singham's Jaykant Shikre was a Hindu… In Simmba, Durva Yashwant Ranade was a Maharashtrian. In these films, negative forces were Hindu. Why wasn’t that a problem?”

The Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif-starrer features Muslim terrorists from Pakistan as the main antagonists, which Shetty also highlighted in his defence.

“If there is a terrorist who is from Pakistan, what caste will he be?” he said, adding, “There is a thought with which a film is made. We never thought that way. So, why is it being discussed?”

“Why is a bad and good person being linked to caste, when we as makers never thought about it? If it was wrong, everyone would have talked about it... a few people are talking, it is their point of view which they need to change, not us,” he concluded.

Sooryavanshi has amassed 102.81 crores at the domestic box office since its release on Friday, November 5.