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COVER
STORY: BOLLYWOOD-MAFIA NEXUS
Return
of the Dons
Faced
with a shrinking empire, a desperate underworld targets the film industry
again. This time round, it's not just extortion. The gangsters muscle
their way to a larger share of the profits.
By
Sheela Raval and V. Shankar Aiyar
Fire
& Ice discotheque, Mumbai, mid-January 2000. It's party time.
Actor-turned-producer-director Rakesh Roshan is celebrating the release
of Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai. As the music picks up tempo everybody, including
the host, gets into the mood. A stranger walks in and whispers into Roshan's
ears: "I have a message from bhai." The bhai: Abu Salem. Suddenly,
the hi-octane music turns into a din and Roshan starts sweating. A few
days later, Salem's men make an abortive attempt on Roshan's life.
 |
| Did
she know CCCC was Shakeel's film? Rizvi tells Shakeel in the
tapes that she did |
Santa
Cruz, Mumbai, October 2000: Roshan is sitting in his heavily guarded
office discussing business with father-in-law J. Om Prakash. The phone
rings and stirs the operator. The caller (from overseas): Chhota Shakeel.
It's about the payment allegedly made by Roshan to the other bhais-Chhota
Rajan and Salem. "What about me?" asks Shakeel brazenly. Roshan
denies paying them. Shakeel persists. Prakash comes on the line and says
Hrithik "is just one film old". Shakeel takes the point. "Okay,
I like the kid. But don't forget, you have to consider our offer too."
Roshan's
office again, November 2000: A youngish man asks to meet Roshan.
It's Nazim Rizvi who has produced B-grade films like Aapathkal
and Angarwadi—his first film was a very telling Majboor
Ladki. He wants to cast Hrithik, whom producers were willing to pay
Rs 8 crore, in his next venture. Roshan says Hrithik doesn't have dates
till 2002. Presumably, he doesn't know Shakeel is backing the film.
Seven
Bungalows, Andheri, December 2000: It's half past eleven in the
morning. Five men arrive in a white Fiat at Sameer Cooperative Housing
Society. One of the men asks for Rizvi's office. Even as the security
guard protests, two more policemen arrive and flank the society's compound.
An hour later, the 42-year-old Rizvi, escorted by policemen and a gun
at his back, comes out. He has just been arrested by Mumbai's Crime Branch
under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act 1999. That was December
13.
Sequels
are not alien to Bollywood. And this was a sequel waiting to be written.
Seven years after the serial bomb blasts, Mumbai's tinsel town finds itself
mixed up with the bad guys yet again. Indeed, contrary to popular perception,
the mafia—though hindered for some years by investigations into the
bomb blasts-has eventually spread its roots deeper and wider.
 |
| Bharat
Shah, one of the industry's top financiers, was summoned by the police
to explain his funding of CCCC |
It started
in the 1980s with Dawood Ibrahim hosting parties at home and booking special
enclosures at Sharjah cricket matches where filmstars were required to
be present. Then came the bomb blasts, which forced the police to unearth
the links. For some time it seemed that Bollywood had severed its connections
although in reality the gangsters were simply biding time. Around 1996-97,
as the bomb blast investigations petered out and TADA was weeded out,
the underworld raised its ugly head again. Threats to extort money and
the killing of music baron Gulshan Kumar were a clear pointer to its return.
That two years later nothing has come out of the Kumar case (on December
21 music director Nadeem, the prime accused, won a case in a UK court
against extradition) emboldened the underworld. To the mafia, it was a
reinforcement of its belief that fear and terror pay. The arrest of Rizvi
takes it to a new level. In a sense, it is the return of the dons.
Mumbai Police
Commissioner M.N. Singh reveals, "The grim shadow of the underworld
on the film industry has reached a danger point. So much so that many
film personalities are on a day-to-day contact with them. A number of
gangs have strong financial interests in the film industry." The
damning indictment of the film world by Singh is backed by surveillance
and investigations carried out by Mumbai's Crime Branch, headed by Joint
Commissioner D. Sivanandhan. Rizvi's arrest was based on 12 audio cassettes
that recorded incriminating telephonic conversations between Shakeel and
Rizvi during the period October 28-November 30.
The tapes-transcripts
of which are with the court-are a testimony to the underworld's spreading
tentacles in the film world. While in the earlier days, the gangsters
were happy with just a cut from the earnings of the star/filmmaker, the
goons now want to be partners in business. Sure, the underworld has been
funding movies but that was limited to cheap potboilers and C-grade thrillers.
Also, unlike just one Dawood earlier, the film industry now has to deal
with South-east Asia-based Rajan, Shakeel and South Africa-based Salem.
To go back,
Rajan, Salem and Shakeel were all working together with Dawood at one
time. Rajan split with Dawood after the bomb blasts to emerge as his challenger.
Salem too parted ways with Dawood and operates independently from South
Africa. Shakeel, while still with Dawood, is emerging as the new challenger.
Instead
of resorting to extortion, almost all of them now want stars to act in
their "home productions". The simple rationale: extortion yields
around a crore of rupees while the other route could fetch 10 times the
amount. What's more, the risk is lower and the investment: fear and terror.
The strategy
is working despite 35 top film industry personalities who have received
extortion threats being under 24-hour police protection. Consider Chori
Chori Chupke Chupke (CCCC). An Abbas-Mustan directorial venture, it
is funded by the industry's top financier Bharat Shah and stars Salman
Khan, Rani Mukherjee and Preity Zinta. It qualifies as a big banner production
given its star cast and cost. Curiously, while a normal movie of this
category takes well beyond a year to make, CCCC took barely six months
to complete. The police believe that a few well-directed calls from Karachi
and not Rizvi's clout may have helped accomplish this. The conclusion:
using threat and coercion, the underworld has worked its way to the top
of the heap.
Muscle power
is not confined to getting the big names to star. Shakeel is believed
to have forced Bharat Shah to fund CCCC. According to the police, Shakeel
was supposed to receive Rs 6 crore a day before the release of the film.
But both Shakeel and Shah deny this. Says Shah: "It is nonsense that
Shakeel has anything to do with the film. I have invested Rs 12 crore
and it is clearly accounted for on paper." The don also ensures the
film does well. According to the police, Rizvi got Shakeel to call Ajay
Devgan to delay the release of Raju Chacha, which is also slated
for release on December 22.
The foray
into films comes in the wake of several setbacks. The underworld has lost
major areas of operation: smuggling of gold and durables to reforms and
the real-estate market to the crash of 1996. With match-fixing in cricket
too going kaput thanks to Hansie-gate, it is left with films for investment
as also to keep its network going.
The changing
economics within the film market itself has also helped. Big money flowing
in from the sale of music, overseas, satellite and distribution rights
has made filmmaking much more profitable. Consider the arithmetic: a big
banner film currently under production will cost around Rs 18 crore when
released in July but the producer has already collected Rs 45 crore. Says
Taran Adarsh, editor of Box Office: "If five years ago an
A-grade film delivered a return of Rs 5-6 crore, today the figure is between
Rs 18-25 crore. This is one industry that delivers instant fame and money
with no questions asked."
A senior
producer in the industry says, "All you need is to get hold of one
Khan or a Hrithik and everything falls into place." Even when things
don't, it takes just one phone call for the recalcitrant filmwallahs to
fall in line. According to information available with the Mumbai police,
Govinda was asked to work in a film backed by Shakeel; director Mahesh
Manjrekar was asked to delay work on a Bappi Soni film so a Rajan-backed
film could be completed first; and Preity Zinta was told to work with
Ajit Diwani, former secretary of Mandakini and now a producer.
Its not
just Shakeel who is getting Bollywood to act on his command. By his own
admission, Shakeel is but a new entrant in the business (see
interview). Rajan's brother, Deepak Nikhalje, too is a film producer—he
made the Sanjay Dutt-starrer Vaastav. Salem is also believed to
be backing producers. One of them, according to information with the Mumbai
Police, is Bobby Anand. However, Anand denies it: "I have no connection
with any don."
Salem is
also said to have made clandestine investments in some TV channels-which
means that the dons are now eyeing the emerging channel market-and even
mega stage shows. Significantly, the police believe that Roshan incurred
Shakeel's wrath because he agreed to do a show sponsored by Salem in the
US next year.
Roshan,
however, denies that Hrithik is doing any show for anybody but says they
have had several offers from organisers who are in the stage show business.
"I would not know if any such show is backed by any of the gangs,"
he adds. Roshan also admits that Rizvi approached him with an offer for
Hrithik that was to be directed by Abbas-Mustan and that he declined since
"Hrithik did not have any dates till 2002. I did not know that Rizvi
had any connection with Shakeel".
Connection
or no connection, Bollywood is struck by terror. Till recently, succumbing
to threats was a way out. As Amit Khanna, chairman of Reliance Entertainment,
points out, "People being targeted bought peace with the underworld
by just doing what it wanted." But with the police intervening, the
negotiated peace between the film industry and the underworld has been
shattered. Bollywood's bigwigs are dumping mobile phone numbers, dodging
calls, changing cars and screening all except family. They have retreated
into a sort of shell. Fear-not just of the gangsters but also of the police
now unearthing bits of the nexus-is in the air.
Sad, but
it need not be this way. To start with, while the police has been proactive
it needs to do more. It has to go after the goons in a sustained manner,
just as it had done after the extortion epidemic that gripped Mumbai in
1998. The state has not only to act but should also be seen doing so.
Given the high profile of the industry, success will bring back the confidence
of the people in the state.
On its part
Bollywood too needs to clean up its act. The film industry is notorious
for its unaccounted cash transactions, not only while paying stars but
also selling distribution rights within India and abroad. Tax evasion
is as much a crime as extortion is. Worse, this necessitates their interaction
with undesirable elements like hawala operators, propelling them into
the unsavoury and waiting arms of the underworld.
This has
to change. Bollywood has now been accorded the status of industry. There
is insurance available, the capital market is welcoming public issues
with high premium, venture capitalists are willingly funding media companies-so
it is not that the filmwallahs require the underworld's ill-gotten moolah.
Sure, there
is the threat to life. But they need to script a new end to this sequel
where as in the films, good eventually triumphs over evil.
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2001, celebrate the future in 