Hansal Mehta honours Shahid Azmi on 10 years of his assassination, expresses gratitude

Shahid was a breakthrough film in both Rajkummar Rao and Hansal Mehta’s careers. The former won the National Award for Best Actor and the latter for the Best Director, amid tremendous acclaim throughout. The reason the hit actor-filmmaker duo earned those laurels was because of the late lawyer Shahid Azmi, on whom the movie was based on.

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While the film has completed over seven years, the assassination of Shahid Azmi has now completed 10 years. As the event completed 10 years on Tuesday, Mehta gave a heartfelt tribute to Azmi. Sharing the lawyer’s photograph along with the character he created in Shahid, played by Rajkummar Rao, called him the ‘voice for the voiceless’ and ‘defence for the defenceless.’ 

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Hansal Mehta also wrote that Shahid had left the world ‘fighting injustice’ by becoming a part of the system that delivered justice. 

The Simran director expressed his gratitude to him for becoming an ‘indelible part’ of the lives of people. 

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Shahid Azmi had become a controversial lawyer after studying law during his seven-year imprisonment at the Tihar Jail. He was acquitted in the case of an alleged conspiracy to kill well-known politicians.  

Azmi had made headlines for defending the accused in cases like the 2002 Mumbai bus bombing, where he helped Arif Paanwala get acquitted, and 2006 Mumbai train bombings, the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul, and the 2006 Malegaon bombings case. 

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He was assassinated by two persons while he was defending an accused in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Shahid Azmi was also the nephew of Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi. 

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