Awarapan 2 writer on continuing Shivam’s journey: ‘I wanted to see some callbacks’

Emraan Hashmi in ‘Awarapan 2’. Pics/Youtube, By Special Arrangement

Bilal Siddiqui was a fan of Awarapan (2007) long before he was asked to write its sequel. So, when he sat down to script Awarapan 2, his first instinct was not to think about the pressure of following a cult movie, but to imagine what a fan would like to see next in the Emraan Hashmi film.

"I allowed the fan in me to take over and write the scenes that I wanted to see. Early on, we eliminated many choices in terms of the direction the story should go in," said Siddiqui, who wrote the story with director Nitin Kakkar and producer Vishesh Bhatt.

Bilal Siddiqui

The 2007 film had established the moral compass of Hashmi's protagonist Shivam and his loss. Taking his journey forward organically, Siddiqui made sure to retain some of the original's elements. "I knew I wanted to see some callbacks to part one here. The payoff of the first part's spirituality comes when Tera Mera Rishta plays again in this film. Shivam hasn't moved on from his lost love - I wanted to maintain that aspect."

Awarapan 2 also brought Siddiqui back to Hashmi, an actor whose work he had watched as a child. "I always liked that Emraan could play characters who were doing the wrong things, and yet there was a likeability to them. I had seen his films on cable TV as a child," he smiled, before adding, "When he heard this version, he liked it. He had a few inputs in terms of the character."

‘Akkha Bollywood ek taraf, Emraan Hashmi ek taraf'

A still from the series

That iconic line from ‘The Ba'''ds of Bollywood' (2025) came almost instinctively to him, revealed co-writer Bilal Siddiqui. "I know Emraan very well, and I know what he means to people. That is genuinely how a lot of his fans feel about him," reflected Siddiqui