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Meghna Gulzar on making film about acid survivor Laxmi Agarwal

Filmmaker Meghna Gulzar, who last directed ‘Raazi’ (2018), is all set to direct a film on acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal, says that the film is an attempt to explore a larger story on acid violence in the country through the real life subject.

Deepika Padukone will be playing the lead role in the film, which also marks the actress’ first stint into production, reports DNA India. Gulzar says Agarwal’s case is the most revealing example of how India’s law, medicine and administration machinery came together for justice.

“In the film with Deepika on acid violence, I’m using Laxmi Agarwal as a subject because she is the most known acid fighter. Plus her case and her story has been the most relevant in terms of where legislation on acid violence, medical advancement, compensation for victims and things like that was concerned,” Gulzar told PTI in an interview.

“There was a whole socio-medical and legal impact that her case had. Therefore, I am using her as a lens to tell a larger story on acid violence in India because even though acid is banned and the sale of acid is regulated in our country as of five years now, we still have acid attacks. It is still the simplest thing to get in a kirana store in a tier-3 city,” the director added.

In 2005, while Agarwal was waiting at a bus stop in Delhi, she was attacked by an assailant, a man twice her age, known to her family and an unlikely suitor whose advances she had declined. The film will showcase her journey in the time after her attack spanning a decade, a significant part of the story is the game-changing PIL in the Supreme Court which inspired the amendment on acid laws in 2013.