Filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi has pushed back against Shabana Azmi’s take on why audiences may have struggled to accept Sunny Deol as a Muslim character in Batwara 1947. According to the veteran actor, Sunny’s larger-than-life image may have made it difficult for viewers to see him as a Muslim on screen. Santoshi, however, doesn’t buy that argument.

Shabana Azmi compared Sunny Deol's role to Amitabh Bachchan 

Azmi had recently expressed her reaction at the audience response to the Partition drama to Zoom, in which she stars alongside Deol. She pointed out that Amitabh Bachchan had successfully played Muslim characters despite being one of Hindi cinema’s biggest stars. “The thing is that you cannot accept Sunny Deol as a Muslim. In Coolie and in many other films, Amitabh Bachchan very comfortably played Muslim characters. In Deewaar, he put 786 and that was accepted. So how do we understand this?” she had shared.