According to a report in a British paper, one of the child stars of “Slumdog Millionaire” was allegedly slapped and kicked by his father during an incident in India on Friday, just days after the young boy returned from his Los Angeles Oscars trip.
The UK’s Sun newspaper reported that Ismail, the father of Azharuddin Mohammed, who played the younger Salim in the Oscar-winning movie, lashed out physically at his son for approximately 30 seconds in front of a crowd.
The father allegedly struck his son repeatedly when the boy, 8, grew tired after his long flight home from Los Angeles and chose to stop talking to a crowd that had gathered outside his home in the Dharavi slum in Bandra, Mumbai.
“I do not want to speak today to any reporters,” Mohammed said.
As the father reportedly hit the boy with his hands and feet, the child’s mother cried for her husband, 45, to stop, according to the paper.
“Azharruddin’s father was upset that he was asking to be left alone because he was tired,” an onlooker told the British paper.
“He didn’t attend school today so that he could recover from his long haul flight from L.A. and simply wanted all the attention to stop,” the onlooker continued. “However, when Azharuddin put his foot down and said that was it and there was to be no more talking, Ismail just flipped … It was like a scene out of ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’”
Photos of the boy following the alleged incident do not show any physical altercation between father and son. They do, however, show the young boy clutching his face. He also appears to be crying in the photos.
According to The Sun, Ismail apologized after the alleged incident.
“I was very sorry that I did what I did,” Ismail is quoted as having said. “I was so confused and stressed by my son’s homecoming that I did not know myself.”
A rep for Fox Searchlight, the studio which released “Slumdog Millionaire” and brought the movie’s children over for the Oscars, was not immediately available for comment.
More on this story Monday night, on Access Hollywood.