Among the 39 deceased in the Istanbul terror attack, two were Indian nationals. One among them was Abis Rizvi, who was a real estate developer and a Hindi film producer. He was the son of ex-Rajya Sabha MP, Akhtar Hasan Rizvi.
The attack happened at a night club in Istanbul in Turkey on New Year’s eve. While the New Year celebrations were going on at around 1.15 am, two gunmen in Santa Claus attire entered the club and started firing randomly. There were reportedly around 700 people present at the club. Out of these 39 were killed.
Rizvi had produced the 2014 movie, Roar: Tigers Of The Sundarbans. It was directed by actor-turned-director, Kamal Sadanah and it revolved around a dreaded man-eating tiger. His next film T For Taj Mahal is currently on floors. It features Subrat Dutta, Pitobash (of Shor In The City fame) and Ali Faulkner, a Hollywood actress who has also played a part in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011).
The news of his demise was shared by Sushma Swaraj, minister of external affairs on Twitter. Her first tweet read, “I have a bad news from Turkey. We have lost two Indian nationals in the Istanbul attack. Indian Ambassador is on way to Istanbul.” She later also said that she has arranged for the visas of the family members of the two deceased Indians.
A number of Hindi film personalities have offered condolences to Rizvi. Actors Govinda, Pooja Bhatt, Nora Fatehi, a cast member of Roar, Randeep Hooda, filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar, who was his close friend and Resul Pookutty, who is the sound designer for T For Taj Mahal, wrote condolence messages for him on Twitter.