The life of murdered journalist Shivani Bhatnagar would soon be made into a movie “Judgement” starring Sunny Deol and Sameera Reddy, director K.S. Adhiyaman told reporters here Monday.

“I decided to make the film after sustained study of the subject and meeting family members of Shivani besides understanding the role of politicians in the tale,” Adhiyaman said.

Deol and Reddy play the investigating officer and lawyer respectively. Actress Nitisha Patel plays the victim Shivani, the director added.

After completion of the project, Adhiyaman is slated to remake his Tamil hit “Thoondil” (fishing hook) into Hindi.

Adhiyaman has directed the Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit combination in “Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam,” Salman Khan, Shilpa Shetty starrer “Shaadi Karke Phaas Gaya Yaar”, and “Hot” featuring Neha Dupia and Bikram Saluja.

Delhi-based Bhatnagar was found murdered Jan 13 1999 in her home. A former top police official R.K. Sharma was recently found guilty of organising her murder. Bhatnagar was allegedly having an affair with the top cop. The case hogged media headlines as Bhatnagar was also allegedly involved with then senior minister Pramod Mahajan.

Mumbai Police Monday suspended the licenses of 35 cinema halls of the city for not adhering to the Maharashtra government’s order for mandatory screening of Marathi movies for minimum of four weeks a year.

Seventy-nine of Mumbai’s 138 cinema theatres, including those in multiplexes, have been served show cause notices for not strictly following the order framed in 1968 and last reviewed in 2005-06, according to Mumbai’s Deputy Commissioner of Police (Theatre) V.M. Jadhav.

The Mumbai Police action Monday came following the orders from the state home department.

Jadhav told IANS that the action was initiated against the cinema halls as per the decision taken four months ago at a review meeting of the state government’s order convened by the Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil.

Marathi filmmakers have for long been complaining that most of them cannot release their movies in Mumbai as the cinema hall owners, including the multiplexes, are reluctant to screen them on one pretext or the other.

They have been urging the state government to take stringent action against the defaulting cinema hall owners.

The owners of these cinema halls have been given eight days to reply to the show cause notices. Within this period, the cinema hall owners, whose licenses have been suspended, can also appeal to the state government.

President of the Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Chitrapat Nirmata Mandal Satish Kulkarni lauded the Mumbai Police’s action. He hoped that the government would not be as lenient on the defaulting cinema halls as in the past.

“Despite a standing state government order, Mumbai’s cinema halls avoided showing Marathi movies on one pretext or the other. At present, as many as 80 Marathi movies are produced annually. But most of them cannot be released in Mumbai for lack of exhibition outlets,” Kulkarni said.

There are only seven to eight single-screen cinemas in the city, including the Plaza and Bharatmata, which show Marathi movies regularly. As these cinema halls are overbooked, they cannot accommodate many of the 80 movies made in a year, so most of the Marathi movie distributors cannot release their movies in Mumbai.

According to Kulkarni, a house-full week of a Marathi movie in a single cinema hall in Mumbai fetches revenues that are equivalent to the box-office earnings from a city like Pune and Aurangabad. That shows how important Mumbai is as a market for Marathi movies.

“But all these years, Marathi filmmakers and distributors have not been able to avail of this lucrative market as there are only few cinema halls which are willing to show Marathi movies. So, the Mumbai Police’s action, though belated, is appropriate,” he commented.

R.V. Bidhani, president of the Cinema Exhibitors’ Association, Mumbai, however, felt that the police action against 79 cinema halls of Mumbai was uncalled for.

“All exhibitors of Mumbai are willing to show Marathi movies, but not at the cost of their business,” he said curtly.

Retorting to Bidhani, Kulkarni said that no Marathi filmmaker is asking for charity from the cinema halls of Mumbai.

“As per the state government’s standing order, Maharashtra’s cinema hall owners are obliged to screen Marathi movies minimum for four weeks a year. Considering that 80 Marathi movies are released in a year, they cannot complain of paucity of movies worth releasing in their cinema halls,” fumed Kulkarni.

Rituparno Ghosh had planned to remake the 1960s classic “Kaagaz Ke Phool” in Hindi with Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi but is now making it in Bengali and has named it “Abaho Mann”.

“I wanted to do this subject for a long time. It was to be done in Hindi. But it didn’t quite work out. I’m far more comfortable doing it in Bengali with a cast that understands the nuances of the culture where I’ve located the drama,” Ghosh told IANS.

Veteran actor Deepankar De enacts the role played by Guru Dutt in the original, Mamta Shankar is the wife and Ananya Chatterjee plays Waheeda Rehman’s role in this real-life love triangle.

“Kaagaz Ke Phool” was based on Guru Dutt’s own troubled marriage with Geeta Dutt.

In addition to the distinguished cast playing the protagonists, Ghosh has roped in late Utpal Dutt’s wife Shobha Sen as Deepankar De’s senile mother.

“Somehow I saw her in the role. Utpal Dutt and I seem to be linked. Last year I directed a film based on his play (’Last Lear’). Now his wife is working with me.”

The glamour quotient is provided by Riya Sen, who plays the love interest of Deepankar’s and Mamta Shankar’s son, played by Jishu Sengupta.

Said Ghosh: “I’ve worked repeatedly with Riya’s sister Raima. I was looking for an opportunity to cast Riya for a long time. She has got lovely features like her mother Moon Moon. In fact, Riya has just completed her work and left for Mumbai.”

For the Hindi version, Ghosh had planned to cast Naseeruddin Shah as the filmmaker-husband, Shabana Azmi as the estranged wife, Farhan Akhtar as their son and Vidya Balan as the actress with whom the husband falls in love.

Having got masterly performances out of Tabu and the Big B in “Cheeni Kum”, director R. Balakrishnan may be expected to recreate the same magic in his next feature film. But he is on a different track in his second directorial venture titled “Pa”.

“Pa” features father-son Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan, but no Tabu.

“But that’s because ‘Pa’ has no room for Tabu at all. This time the story is a father-son one. Amitabh has no love interest in the film and I am sorry about that. Abhishek does have a girl though,” Balakrishnan told IANS.

For the female lead, the director has roped in Vidya Balan - the first time that Abhishek is being paired with the lately out-of-sight Vidya.

“We’ve already approached Vidya and she has more or less agreed. I can see her as a pair with Abhishek, can’t you?”

Vidya comes into the picture through her sister Priya, who works with ad man Balakrishnan at Lintas.

“In fact, it’s Priya I know well. I got to know Vidya only when we started talking for ‘Pa’,” said the director, fondly called Balki.

After being paired with Preity Zinta, Rani Mukerji and Priyanka Chopra, Abhishek is on the look out for fresh collaborative opportunities.

Vidya is someone the Bachchans have admired from the time the Big B saw her in “Parineeta” and then worked with her in “Eklavya - The Royal Guard”.

The Big B had compared Vidya with his favourite actress Waheeda Rehman.

So is Balki looking at the prospect of directing a new pair?

“I don’t look at it that way. Vidya suits the role. I’ve known her from her ad days. Though we haven’t done any ad together she has done ads for my company Lintas.”

Hrithik Roshan has put all his travelling plans on hold because Suzanne is pregnant with their second child. The baby is due any day now and the actor wants to be with his wife.

“I’m just not stepping out of Mumbai for some time now. That’s why I had to say no to the Zee awards. Right now I can’t focus on any work that takes me outside Mumbai,” Hrithik told IANS.

The award function was held Saturday in London.

Hrithik is at the moment shooting for Zoya Akhtar’s directorial debut “Luck By Chance” in Mumbai. The actor has a guest appearance in the film - a commitment he made long ago and is only too happy to fulfil since Zoya is not only a close friend of Farhan’s sister but also the first female director Hrithik has worked with.

“We’ve been shooting nights for the last few days. And I’ve one full song to do before I am done. That will keep me busy till the end of the week,” said Hrithik who acted in Farhan’s “Lakshya”.

Hopefully, by the time Zoya’s shooting is done, Hrehaan will have his sibling and Hrithik will be able to travel again.