Alia Bhatt’s Raazi is widely regarded as one of the highlights of her career, but the film has continued to face criticism from Harinder Singh Sikkaauthor of Calling Sehmat, the book that inspired the 2018 spy drama. In a recent interview, Sikka made fresh allegations against filmmaker Gulzar, director Meghna Gulzar and a person you identified as a representative Shah Rukh Khan‘s Red Chillies Entertainment.Sikka claimed that his first meeting with Gulzar took place around 2016-17, during which the veteran lyricist and filmmaker urged him to consider Meghna Gulzar for the project.“When I went to meet Gulzar at his house, he said, ‘My daughter has been unemployed for four years. People think Talvar was made by Vishal Bhardwaj. So give her a job’. I said, ‘I will. It’s a promise,'” he said in an interview with the YouTube channel Desimartini.Sikka added that he later discussed the matter with Vishal Bhardwaj, who, according to him, replied, “Vishal said, ‘I am like Gulzar’s son.’ That statement said it all.”According to Sikka, he had agreed to part with the film rights of Calling Sehmat only on the condition that he would have a say in the selection of both the director and the lead actors. He alleged that Junglee Pictures eventually agreed to these terms, albeit reluctantly.“And that’s how Meghna Gulzar became the director of this project,” he said.Sikka further claimed that Meghna maintained a warm relationship with him during the making of the film, addressing him as “uncle”. However, he claimed that his equation changed once filming concluded.“I don’t want to call you uncle anymore. I don’t want to talk anymore,” he claimed she wrote to him after the film ended.The author also criticized several creative liberties taken in adapting his book, saying that the changes significantly altered the essence of the original story.“According to the book, when Sehmat returned, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) welcomed her with a red carpet and saluted the tricolor. This was the real story. Meghna took it out and returned to Sehmat in a depressed state and they showed it as if a Kashmiri woman has made a mistake fighting for India. There was no tricolor in the film, but there were so many Pakistani flags,” he said, adding, “They painted Pakistan Army soft and questioned IB.“Sikka also alleged that he contacted Gulzar after Raazi was released in 2018 and accused him of delaying the release of his book. He further claimed that Gulzar influenced the Jaipur Literature Festival organizers not to invite him.“Gulzar called the Jaipur Literature Festival and told them not to invite me when I had put so much effort into making his daughter a director.”He also alleged that the title of the film was deliberately changed from Calling Sehmat to Raazi.“They changed the name of the film from Calling Sehmat to Raazi so that Sehmat is not as important as Meghna because they wanted to protect Meghna,” he claimed.During the same conversation, Sikka revisited an earlier incident that he said took place in 2008, when an individual named Samar Khan, who allegedly identified himself as the director of Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment, approached him to acquire the rights to Calling Sehmat.According to Sikka, he quoted Rs 1.5 crore for the rights and insisted on retaining control over the choice of director and cast. He stated that these demands were rejected.“He stood up and said, ‘We’re giving him Rs 5-7 lakh.’ Chetan Bhagat. who are you I refused to sell him the book. He said, “We’re going to do it anyway. Do whatever you want to do.”Sikka also alleged that after discussing the matter with a friend, Major Chibba, the dispute was resolved and he received a written apology from Samar Khan. However, he claimed that during a subsequent meeting, Khan made another comment.“Within two weeks, I got a written apology from Samar Khan, but when he met me in person, he said, ‘I won’t let you work in Mumbai.’Earlier this year in March, Sikka had described allowing Meghna Gulzar to direct Raazi as his “biggest error of judgement”. Despite her repeated criticism of the film and its makers over the years, neither Meghna Gulzar nor Gulzar have publicly responded to her allegations.