Slumdog child star's home demolished

Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 10, claims he was smacked with stick as Mumbai officials flattened shantytown home
Slumdog child star's home bulldozed Link to video: City bulldozes Slumdog star's home

The shantytown home of one of the child stars of the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire was demolished by Mumbai authorities today.

  1. Slumdog Millionaire
  2. Production year: 2008
  3. Country: UK
  4. Cert (UK): 15
  5. Runtime: 120 mins
  6. Directors: Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan
  8. More on this film

Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, who played a young Salim, one of the film's main characters, claimed he was woken by police and smacked with a bamboo stick during the early morning raid.

City workers flanked by policemen flattened about 30 dwellings as part of a slum demolition drive, which are common in India's crowded cities.

"They didn't give prior notice. We didn't even get a chance to take out our belongings," said Shameem Ismail, the actor's mother, who has lived in the shanty­town for more than 15 years. She has no legal right to the land.

"I don't know what I am going to do," she said, sitting on a bed she had dragged from the wreckage.

Azhar, 10, was awoken by a policeman and told to leave, he said. "A police officer took a bamboo stick to hit me and I was frightened."

Eight Oscars and $326m (£216m) in box office receipts have so far done little to change the lives of the film's two impoverished child stars, Azhar and Rubina Ali. Azhar returned from the glitz of the Academy awards to the same makeshift plastic tent pitched on a half-finished government park near the Bandra railway station.

Slumdog filmmakers have donated £500,000 to a charity to help slum children in Mumbai. They have set up a trust, Jai Ho, named after the hit song from the film, to ensure children get proper homes, a good education and a nest egg when they finish school.

A municipal official, Uma Shankar ­Mistry, who was present during the demolition, told the BBC the authorities razed only temporary and illegal homes that had recently been erected next to the slum. He said the houses were in an area that was meant for a public garden.

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