Ramesh plans to shoot it in real locations and the names of people will also remain the same.
Credit: Special arrangement
Bengaluru: Kannada film Cyanide (2006), which depicts the 20-day manhunt to find Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins in Bengaluru, will be re-released on May 23. It will be released to mark Rajiv Gandhi’s 34th death anniversary, which falls on May 21, director AMR Ramesh told DH.
After Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination on May 21, 1991 by the Liberated Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu, some of the LTTE operatives sought refuge in a house in Bengaluru.
Cyanide has been re-edited with an extra nine-minute footage added to the film.
Additionally, Ramesh is planning a prequel to the film. It will be called Cyanide: The Human Bomb.
“Cyanide was about the last 20 days of the chase. But there is a 90-day story before this. The assassination took place on May 21, 1991 but the nine-member team came to India on May 1. The prequel will include the events between May 1 and August 1, 1991,” Ramesh shared.
Speaking about the relevance of the story in today’s time, Ramesh said, “Rajiv Gandhi’s assassin was the first ‘human bomb’ in the history of humankind. Police were not able to figure out from where the blast occurred. Only when an unidentified body was found, they realised it was a 'human bomb'. With rising terrorism today, it’s very important for people to know what happened and how it happened.”
Ramesh plans to shoot it in real locations and the names of people will also remain the same.
“The LTTE had their own revolution, their own fight. I’m trying to tell the whole story, what exactly transpired in those 90 days,” he added.
“After the re-release of Cyanide on May 23, we plan to launch the prequel,” he says. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is expected to watch the film on May 21.