Bollywood director explores suicide bomber's mind

MUMBAI, India - A Bollywood director plans to make a film inspired in part by July's London bombings that will explore the story of a would-be suicide bomber struggling to reconcile the message of radical Islam with an appetite for life.

Mahesh Bhatt's Suicide Bomber, to be set in Britain and India, will also seek to spread the message that Islam is a religion of peace, mercy and forgiveness, the leading director said.

"Muslims are demonised by the western nations especially after the so-called war on terror. The gulf between Muslims and the rest of the world is widening," Bhatt said.

"The film will be an attempt to clarify Islam is not demonic and to delve into the mind of a young suicide bomber to try to find out what drives him to reject life for a violent death."

Bhatt's 21-year-old son, Rahul, will play the lead role -- an Asian Muslim living in Britain who is drawn by radical ideology to kill himself and others in the name of faith, but who fails in his deadly mission and flees to India.

"There, life grabs our young man and then it becomes a struggle between (his) heart and his commitment to ideology," Bhatt said. Shooting is slated to begin in June and the film may be ready for a December release.

Bhatt, known both for mainstream commercial and bold art-house style plots, said he chose to make a US$1.1 million ($1.6 million) film in the backdrop of the London bombings because terrorism was now a global phenomenon.

Four British Muslims blew themselves up on London's transport system on July 7, 2005, killing 52 people and themselves and wounding more than 700. One of the bombers left a video message saying he had acted because of Britain's role in the war in Iraq.

Bhatt, who is researching material on suicide bombers and bombings, said he was moved after reading an account in Time magazine written by a young suicide bomber in Iraq shortly before embarking on his fatal mission.

"The suicide bomber wrote that he began to live the day he came to know he was to die. Where did he get this passion to kill?" Bhatt said.

The film-maker, raised by a Muslim mother and Hindu father, has been a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, saying the western world needed to stop demonising Islam and take a closer look at its own actions in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq.

- REUTERS