Harry Potter star Afshan Azad fled her family home after her father and brother allegedly threatened to kill her in a row over a boyfriend.
The 21-year-old actress, who has appeared in four of the hit films as one of the movie wizard’s screen girlfriends, was believed to be in hiding last night after the pair appeared in court to face charges.
Abdul Azad, 54, is accused of threatening to kill his daughter while Ashraf Azad, 28, is charged with threatening to kill his sister and of causing her actual bodily harm.
The charges follow an alleged “honour” argument in the Muslim family’s home about Afshan’s friendship with a Hindu man.
Her brother and father allegedly confronted her in her bedroom and demanded that she end the relationship.
When she refused it is claimed she was attacked and left “badly bruised”. Afshan, who is of Bangladeshi decent, moved to London to stay with friends immediately after the alleged incident at the house in Longsight, Manchester on May 21.
The two men were arrested and remanded in custody to Manchester’s Strangeways jail.
On Tuesday they appeared by video link at the city’s magistrates’ court. The 75-minute hearing was adjourned until July 12 for Crown Court committal proceedings and both men were granted bail.
At the family’s extended semi-detached home yesterday accused customer service adviser Ashraf Azad said: “I don’t want to comment on anything. My dad is at the solicitors at the moment. We are going to get trouble from the community now. I am not happy at all. I could lose my job over this because the people at work will see this.”
Afshan played the role of Padma Patil, a classmate of Daniel Radcliffe’s young wizard, in four of the Potter films.
Her character is a witch in the same year as Harry at Hogwarts, and is the identical twin sister of Parvati Patil, played by actress Shefila Chowdhury. She will also feature in the final two-part instalment, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, due for release this November and next summer.
Afshan was studying for her AS levels at Xaverian College in Rusholme, Manchester, when she was cast to appear in Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire in 2005.
She won the role when casting agents visited Whalley Range High School for Girls where she was a pupil and she was chosen after attending several auditions.
Afshan had never acted before being picked and admitted that she only went along with friends to the first audition “for a laugh”.
She appeared in the movies while continuing her studies and once had ambitions to be a journalist. She said that landing the role was “the best experience of my life”. She added: “The first day we had to do a cast read-through, where we go through the whole script. I was a bit star-struck – I was a big Harry Potter fan.”
Afshan’s character Padma accompanied Harry to the ball held in The Goblet Of Fire.