Lucknow: A section of Deoband clerics has demanded a ban on Padmavati, claiming Delhi Sultanate leader Alauddin Khilji "has been wrongly portrayed in the film as a cruel womaniser".

The release of the Sanjay Leela Bhansali film has been deferred because of protests from certain Hindu groups.

"The second ruler of the Khilji dynasty has been shown in the film as a demonic and lecherous emperor. But the fact is that he was a responsible and soft-hearted king who believed in expansionism. Muslims should oppose Bhansali's film," said Maulana Nadeem-ul-Wajidi, Uttar Pradesh president of the Tanzeem-Ulema-e-Hind, at a news conference in Deoband on Thursday evening.

Wajidi is an Arabic scholar and alumnus of Darul Uloom, the Sunni seminary in Deoband, Saharanpur district.

According to him, the existence of Padmavati is "ahistorical" - "only an imagination of a poet".

"There is no historic record of a queen named Padmavati. It is also historically incorrect that Khilji invaded Chittorgarh just because he wanted to win over the queen of this name. The fact is that he was involved in many battles to assimilate other principalities in his empire and Chittorgarh was one of them," Wajidi said.

"Khilji did a lot for the growth of the people in India. But this film is defaming a king who was incidentally a Muslim," he said, adding that the "character" Padmavati was created by Malik Mohammad Jayasi, a Sufi poet, in 1540, more than 200 years after the death of Khilji in 1316.

"The film is based on Jayasi's epic poem Padmavat. I am unable to understand why the Rajputs are feeling offended about a work of fiction when in fact the Muslims should have started a protest first against distortion of history. We demand that the government look at the film from Khilji's side and ban it," Wajidi said.