'Slumdog' star's home demolished

The home of one of the child stars of Slumdog Millionaire has been demolished by city authorities, it has emerged.

Police are said to have hit Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail with a bamboo stick before ordering him out of the slum dwelling, the BBC reports.

Ismail played a younger version of Salim in the Oscar-winning movie.

The authorities claimed that the temporary makeshift shelter constructed with plastic sheets was built on government-owned land.

Ismail said: "We are homeless, we have nowhere to go."

His mother Shamim said: "Our house has been broken down by officials. We have not been given any alternate accommodation. Earlier the authorities had said they would give us a house. But I don't think that will happen anymore."

Municipal official Uma Shankar Mistry said that only recently-erected illegal homes are being demolished and that the houses destroyed were situated in an area designated as a public garden.