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Raees filmmakers appear to have little doubt that Mahira Khan alone can pull in big crowds in the Pakistani box office.

**Read more:* How Mahira Khan overtook Huma Qureshi to play SRK's wife in Raees*

According to a report in Asian Age, the film producers have decided to release Mahira's Bollywood debut in Pakistan, without the item number performed by Sunny Leone in the film. Leone is said to have danced with SRK on a faster version of the '80s classic 'Laila O Laila' in the sequence.

The reason for this cut?

"The makers feel that Sunny’s sequence may be a little risque for the Pakistani audience," a source disclosed, adding that “Raees has a deep Pakistan connection. The film’s leading lady Mahira Khan is from Pakistan and the protagonist is a Muslim businessman."

**Also read:* 'We will look good in Raees', SRK tweets to Mahira*

The source added that the item song was a late addition to the film's script, written in for some extra masala in the project:

“Everyone from Shah Rukh, to director Rahul Dholakia and producers Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani felt that the film needed that sizzling number, that tadka. And that’s how Sunny Leone came into the picture.”

Raees is an action thriller starring Shah Rukh Khan as a bootlegger and Mahira Khan as his wife. Directed by Rahul Dholakia of Lamhaa fame, the film will release on January 26, 2017.