Mumbai:
The attack on Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan on Thursday night has once again raised questions on the safety of Bollywood stars. At the same time, this attack has also reminded us of the era when there was fear of the underworld in Mumbai and celebrities associated with Bollywood were threatened every day. NDTV had a special conversation with Avinash Dharmadhikari, who held the post of ACP in Mumbai Police, about how unsafe film celebrities were in that period and how much the underworld dominated Bollywood. Let us tell you that Avinash Dharmadhikari was also involved in the investigation of many such cases during that period.
In a special conversation with NDTV, Avinash Dharmadhikari said that before the 1993 blasts, Dawood Ibrahim’s image was not anti-national. At that time, many Bollywood actors considered it better to be with Dawood Ibrahim. But as soon as Dawood’s name came up in the Mumbai blasts in 1993, Bollywood actors started distancing themselves from Dawood. I myself had interrogated Shahrukh Khan at that time.
The underworld had invested a lot of money in Bollywood and a fight started between Bollywood and the underworld regarding that. Many Bollywood actors have been attacked and we have also saved many from being attacked. I myself had foiled the attack on Rajkumar Santoshi. There was a thread on Madhuri Dixit too, we neutralized it.
Earlier also received threat for extortion
Retired ACP Avinash of Mumbai Police told that earlier in those times similar threats were made for extortion. But the method of asking or taking extortion was different. Extortion was also done in different ways. In that period, Bollywood actors used to get threats. They used to get these threats because of mutual differences with the underworld because they were also due to mutual differences. In those times the underworld used to deliberately extort money. Underworld interference had also increased in Bollywood. At that time, there was so much interference of the underworld in Bollywood that the underworld also decided which actor or actresses would be in which film.
Used to study with Madhuri in 12th
He said that when I was in 12th, we (I and Madhuri Dixit) were together. We also lived together in JB Nagar. We used to travel by the same bus. She was not a celebrity at that time. He left college after 12th. Madhuri Dixit had a different kind of threat. Anish was the brother of Dawood Ibrahim. He was very interested in Bollywood actors. He used to call such actresses deliberately. At that time we had focused on the safety of Madhuri Dixit. At that time a word was quite popular which was MD. We had done a lot of work on MD threat perception. We later came to know that the MD thread was used only for Madhuri Dixit. However, we later neutralized that thread perception. We have also saved the lives of many people in the film industry.
Behind the murder of Baba Siddiqui
You see, Baba Siddiqui had good relations with Bollywood. He had good relations with Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt. To increase mental pressure on Salman Khan, Bishnoi gang attacked him. After the murder of Baba Siddiqui, Bishnoi gang tried to threaten many people in Mumbai but Mumbai Police did not allow this to happen. As of today, the intelligence of Mumbai Police is quite good. Mumbai today is not as threatened by gangsters as it is by terrorism.
