Amritsar: Actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who stars in “Sarbjit”, a biopic on Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh, today visited Golden Temple for shooting of the film here.
Clad in Punjabi suit with her head covered with a dupatta, the actress paid obeisance in the sanctum sanctorum of the Golden Temple.
Thereafter she went to Langar (community kitchen) of the Golden Temple where she cooked food, cleaned the floor with devotion to seek blessing from Almighty.
Shooting for film began in the afternoon and it continued till evening whereupon different kind of scenes were shot including inside the community kitchen while cleaning utensils, cleaning floor of Langar, cooking vegetables.
She was seen standing before the deg (big ironed rounded utensils) used for cooking for several hundred people.
In the Omung Kumar-directed movie, the 42-year-old actor plays the role of Sarabjit’s sister Dalbir Kaur, while actor Randeep Hooda will be seen in the titular role.
The film is slated to release on May 20. It will be shot in various cities of Punjab including Amritsar, Malerkotla and Patiala.
The film captures the plight of prisoners lodged in various jails across the border.
“I hope the biopic will highlight the plight of Indian prisoners lodged in various jails in Pakistan,” said Dalbir Kaur sister of Sarbjit Singh, who struggled for decades to get her brother out of the Pakistani prison.
Sarabjit died after a brutal attack by jail inmates in a Pakistani jail in 2013. He was convicted of terrorism and spying by a Pakistani court and sentenced to death in 1991 but the government had stayed his execution for an indefinite period in 2008.
His sister and family started a campaign for his release saying he was the victim of mistaken identity and had inadvertently strayed across the border in an inebriated state.
About Aishwarya playing the role, Dalbir said, “She is the right choice. I came to know that while shooting a scene for the film earlier, she turned emotional.
“I strongly wish that film should depict the hardships faced by Sarbjit Singh during his life time especially the time he had spent in the Kotlakhpatrai jail of Lahore in Pakistan where he was killed in a murderous attack by one of the jail mate” Kaur quipped.