Director Rajkumar Santoshi comments on his creative decision involving Sunny Deol in *Batwara 1947*. Santoshi says he discussed the idea of casting Deol in a Muslim character and that the concept itself surprised him and stood out as a notable choice. He describes the project as one in which the filmmakers considered how the casting would play on screen and how it could contribute to the film’s appeal.
Santoshi links the discussion to Deol’s role as Sikandar Mirza, a character presented as fighting extremism. He says that Deol’s star power is a positive factor for reaching a commercial audience, while framing the casting as part of the film’s broader creative planning. The outlets present slightly different emphasis—one highlights the director’s belief that they “had thought about it,” while the other foregrounds Santoshi calling the casting a “shocker”—but both attribute the comments to Santoshi and connect them to the same film and character.
