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| Muzaffar Ali pocketed Rs 70 Lakh but never made the film | | Farooq’s dream “Zooni” yet again in Assembly | | Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, Aug 24: For a change, PDP’s Pir Mansoor Hussain had neither a private member’s resolution seeking to rename his Anantnag as Islamabad nor a question aimed at embarrassing Omar Abdullah’s government over abuse of human rights by security forces. Days after Hussain’s senior colleague Muzaffar Hussain Baig failed in his adventurism of pulling down Omar and Farooq Abdullah into the cesspool of immorality, Mehbooba Mufti’s confidante had a question today that would have generated explosive supplementaries in the Assembly. Why should have Farooq Abdullah’s government stood security for the finance of Rs 70 Lakh that Muzaffar Ali lifted from Punjab National Bank for making a film on the Valley’s legendary queen-poetess Habba Khatoon in 1989 ?
Vinod Khanna Dimple Kapadia-starrer “Zooni”---Habba Kahtoon’s Kashmiri nickname---was never completed in the last 20 years. Armed insurgency is, obviously, offered as the key reason.
While the recluse producer-director of “Zooni”, Muzaffar Ali, has engaged himself in making “Noor Jehan-Jehangir” on the Mughal royal couple, in addition to one on the 13th century Iranian poet, Maulana Jalal-ud-din Rumi, and cinematographer Basheer Ali has risen to the zenith of shooting J P Dutta’s Abhishek Bachhan Kareena Kapoor-starrer “Refugee”, the bilingual on Kashmir’s last monarch Yusuf Shah Chak has never seen the light of the day. Muzaffar Ali has been repeatedly claiming that he had completed 30% of the shooting in Valley and was determined to complete his “dream project”.
In his off-beat, Hussain had desired to know if Muzaffar Ali had taken a “huge amount” from J&K’s Department of Tourism in 1987-90 for making “Zooni” and what exactly was the present status of the project. He also wanted to know why the film had not been completed in the last 20 years.
In his written reply to Hussain’s question, that failed to come up for discussion, Minister incharge Tourism and Culture, Nawang Rigzin Jora, informed the House that the proprietor of Integrated Films, Muzaffar Ali, had started making a documentary film on Habba Khatoon over 20 years ago. New Bank of India, which was later christened as Punjab National Bank, demanded details of his assets from the filmmaker as also bank guaranty of Rs 50 Lakh. Then Government agreed to stand as guaranty. Subsequently, a tripartite agreement was executed for the film project on 28-10-1988 between the state of J&K as guarantor, M/S Integrated Films of Muzaffar Ali and PNB.
Thereafter a deed of guaranty was issued by J&K Government through Commissioner-Secretary Tourism for an amount of Rs 50 Lakh. An additional guaranty of Rs 20 Lakh was extended by J&K Government on 8-12-1989.
“Thus the state of J&K stands guarantor for an amount of Rs 70 Lakh in aggregate for the loans raised by M/S Integrated Films for the film project”, Tourism Minister said in his reply. He added: “However, the film could not be completed because of onset of the militancy problem in the state, nor was the loan lifted repaid to the bank of the film-maker. As a result, the bank authorities have filed a suit against Shri Muzaffar Ali and the state of J&K and the matter is sub-judice in the Hon’ble High Court.
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