By M.R Jain, Bollywood Trade News Network

The Sanjay Dutt starrer, SARHAD PAAR is being lined up for a Republic Day release in keeping with the film’s patriotic theme and Dutt’s recent clearance from the TADA charges. According to Rajesh Thadani, distribution head of Nimbus Communications, Sanjay completed the dubbing of the film on January 2 and the film was practically ready for release. “We wanted to confirm the release date only after Sanjay was through with the dubbing. Now that its over we are looking at January 26 as a probable release date,” Thadani revealed.

The decision to expedite the film’s release was apparently made on the same day when Dutt was absolved of conspiracy charges and given an extension of bail. Sanjay subsequently went out of his way to ensure completion of his pending work, putting the film on his priority list of pending films. However Vivek Vaswani, Group Advisor, Nimbus Communications, says that the release date has nothing to do with the recent court verdict. “We were not concerned about the court ruling at any point of time. Sanjay’s last release LAGE RAHO MUNNABHAI, did excellent business irrespective of the verdict. The audiences don’t really go by these factors. They are simply concerned about the film and the actor they love,” Vaswani reveals, adding that the date has been chosen to avert competition from other major releases in February.

SARHAD PAAR which was initially planned as a story about a prisoner of war in Pakistan was initially delayed for several reasons, one of them being the changing nature of India-Pakistan relations, when India and Pakistan stuck a goodwill pact. The anti-Pak angle was resultantly scrapped and the story was re-structured to give a more positive feel. Later, the producers’ picturised a hot number on Rahul Dev, in order to boost the market prospects of the film. Dev plays the role of a mercenary in the film.

However Sanjay Dutt’s inability to give dates hampered the film’s completion. Now that it is complete, the producers are all set to release it as soon as possible. It remains to be seen whether the film is able to cash in on the LAGE RAHO… success wave that Sanjay is riding on.