Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan received the best actor award for his role of a child suffering from progeria, a rare genetic disease that causes rapid aging, in "Paa." Bachchan's actor son Abhishek played the role of the child's father.
But the two Bachchans along with many other Indian stars failed to show up at the International Indian Film Awards in Colombo on Saturday.
They said they had prior commitments. However, some fellow actors and directors from India's southern state of Tamil Nadu had asked them to boycott the ceremony, accusing Sri Lankan forces of killing ethnic Tamil civilians in the final stages of the long-running civil war which ended last year.
"3 Idiots," a film directed by Rajkumar Hirani that revolves around the lives of three engineering students, won 16 out of 31 awards, including best director.
It won eight of the 12 technical awards, including best screenplay, best cinematography and editing. Kareena Kapoor, who starred in "3 Idiots," shared the best actress award with Vidya Balan from "Paa."
Those who did not show up in Colombo included big Bollywood names Aamir Khan, Shah Ruk Khan and Bachchan's actress daughter-in-law, former Miss World Aishwarya Rai.
Last year, Sri Lanka's military defeated Tamil Tiger rebels after a decades-long armed struggle for a separate homeland for minority Tamils, who have family and cultural links with the people of Tamil Nadu in India.
According to U.N. documents, more than 7,000 civilians were killed in the last five months of the civil war. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people died during the conflict.
Government troops were accused of shelling a small strip of land where hundreds of thousands of people were boxed-in during the last stages of the war, while the rebels were blamed for killing noncombatants trying to leave the area.
The government has denied deliberately killing civilians.
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