BACHCHAN EVACUATED FROM LONDON HOTEL FOLLOWING SUSPECTED EXPLOSION

Bollywood superstar Amitabh
Bachchan was evacuated
from a London hotel on
Monday following what
police said was a suspected
bomb explosion.

A tweet from Bachchan said
“ Emergency in my hotel in
London. Everyone evacuated
out on the street in biting
cold. Suspecting explosion in
next door. Managed to get
into a car and driving away
from site of emergency.
Police not allowing anyone
near. ”

The tweet came even as
controversy surrounds
Bachchan ’s cold war with the
International Indian Film
Academy, the organiser of
the annual IIFA awards which
has decided to do away with
the post of brand
ambassador, a position
Bachchan occupied for a
decade.

Tweeting from London a day
and a half before the IIFA
holds a news conference in
Toronto, where the next IIFA
is to be held, Bachchan
wrote: “We are not coming
to IIFA... IIFA said our services
are not required !!”

He added: “It’s not me... it’s
the organisers of IIFA that do
not want me in Toronto... Sri
Lanka was the same. ”

The Canadian city of Toronto
is the scheduled venue for
this year ’s IIFA awards, slated
from June 23 to June 25,
2011.
A source in Wizcraft, the
event management company
behind the IIFA, said the
battle lines had been drawn
when Bachchan refused to
participate in last year ’s
awards ceremony, held in
Colombo, thus failing to
honour his contract as brand
ambassador.

The Bachchans had backed
out after members of the
South Indian Film Chamber
of Commerce demanded
they not attend the event in
a country where a large
number of Tamils were killed
during anti-LTTE operations.

Some Mumbai-based Tamils
had protested before
Bachchan ’s home in Juhu.
Film industry sources,
however, said the reason the
Bachchans skipped the
Colombo ceremony was the
IIFA ’s decision not to
premiere Mani Ratnam’s
Raavan, which featured
Abhishek Bachchan, at the
event.

The annual IIFA event had
always been a showcase for
the Bachchan family since
the superstar officially
became its brand
ambassador.
Bachchan had, therefore,
expected the Colombo event
to give a kick-start to
Abhishek ’s big release last
year.


Ratnam later argued that the
film wasn ’t ready, but
industry insiders say Wizcraft
had refused to screen Raavan
after the pro-LTTE lobby got
the entire Tamil film industry
to boycott the Colombo
show. - (ANI)