Bigelow, who shot to fame with 'The Hurt Locker' in 2010 by becoming the first woman director to win the Academy Award for her film, has chosen locations in north India to shoot her movie on the elimination of Bin Laden.

Titled 'Zero Dark Thirty' or 'ZD30', her unit has shot at a dhaba and some shops in Mani Majra, an old town suburb of Chandigarh, for the movie. Sources in Bigelow's film unit say some of the film scenes will be shot in and around Chandigarh and some places in neighbouring Punjab.

To give the feel of a Pakistani town, the shops have signboards written in Urdu, the language commonly used in Pakistan, while three-wheeler auto-rickshaws and other vehicles too have got a brightly coloured layer of paint and Pakistani registration numbers.

A local hardware shop, Ramgarhia Hardware store has been renamed 'Shahzad Hardware and Paint Store' in Urdu. An internet cafe and a phone call centre have also been given Pakistani names for the shots.

According to reports the supporting actors in the backdrop are mostly hired locally or from Delhi, their clothes and appearance has been made to match with life in Pakistan.

Bin Laden was hunted down by US special operation forces in a midnight raid at a 'safe house' in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad in May last year. It saw the special forces landing at a compound and killing the Al Qaeda chief who masterminded the 9/11 attack in the US in 2001 and other terror operations across the world.

Incidentally, the shooting for the film began here just days after the Abbottabad 'safe house' was demolished by the authorities in Pakistan earlier this week.

The film is expected to be released at the end of this year.