INDIA: Conviction Offers Peek into Links Between Film, Crime

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Oct 3 2003 (IPS) - The nexus between India’s glitzy, multi-billion-dollar film industry and the underworld was on display once again after a movie financier was convicted this week by a special court that handles organised crime.

The court in the western port city of Mumbai – home to what is considered to be the world’s most prolific film industry – sentenced Bharat Shah to a year’s rigorous imprisonment on Wednesday, and then deemed that he had served that term already through the 14 months he spent in judicial custody.

While Shah got the benefit of doubt, the court sentenced film producer Nasim Rizvi and his assistant Allah Baksh to six years rigorous imprisonment each on charges of extorting money from some of India’s best-known film stars on behalf of the Dubai-based mobster Chota Shakeel.

The police case against the three was that the real mover behind the movie ‘Chori Chori Chupke Chupke’ (Silent Theft), released in 2000, was in fact Chota Shakeel. Police also said that it was a prime example of how big-ticket movies were in fact not only funded but also financed by the Indian underworld, which operates not only out of Mumbai but also Karachi and Dubai.

”The fact that Shah got off lightly only proves that India’s film industry not only depends critically on vast amounts of black (unaccounted) money provided by the underworld but also that it is an important component of ‘havala’ (money laundering) operations,” said Vineet Narain, India’s best-known crusader against corruption in public life.

In an interview with IPS, Narain said the system had become so entrenched that prosecutions could not be trusted to put up strong enough cases to secure worthwhile or exemplary convictions.

The special court discounted as evidence tape-recorded conversations between Shah and Chota Shakeel. Judge A P Bhangale found Shah guilty of ”being aware of organised crime syndicates” being involved with the financing of the film, but absolved him of direct dealings with the underworld that attracts the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

Convicting Shah, who critics believe has financed hundreds of films using money with dubious antecedents, became difficult after leading film personalities such as Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Rakesh Roshan, Mahesh Manjrekar and Sanjay Dutt turned hostile and refused to testify in court against him or of having dealings with the underworld.

The sole exception was leading actress Preity Zinta, who testified in court that she had in fact been threatened on the sets of ‘Chori Chori Chupe Chupke’ by an agent of Chota Shakeel and asked to pay up her dues.

Police say they have evidence of stars being threatened by the underworld to pay set percentages of the millions of dollars they receive in black money. Rakesh Roshan narrowly escaped a shooting attempt on his life that apparently was a gangland warning, but other film world personalities have not been so lucky.

Films financed by Shah have included the 10-million -dollar extravaganza ‘Devdas,’ the story of a besotted lover played by Shahrukh Khan which was entered for the Oscars this year but drew a blank.

Shah’s arrest in 2001 for making use of funds from unsavoury sources brought gloom to Mumbai’s film industry, which has no legitimate source for the vast funding needed for productions that typically calls for shooting in exotic locales such as Switzerland, Mauritius, Singapore and New Zealand.

According to Prafulla Ketkar, researcher at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), which specialises on security issues in South Asia, the bond between Mumbai’s film industry and the underworld is founded on mutual co-existence and stretches across the three Arabian Sea port cities of Mumbai, Karachi and Dubai.

”The Dubai-Karachi-Mumbai contraband trade in smuggled films and audio cassettes alone has a turnover of more than eight billion dollars a year,” Ketkar said.

The deep nexus between organised criminal groups and the film world was exposed after the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, which left 257 people dead and caused Mumbai’s biggest mobster Dawood Ibrahim and film financier to shift base first to the United Arab Emirates and later to Karachi.

For years, Pakistan officially denied the existence of Dawood on Pakistan soil but after a blast ripped through a Karachi high-rise on Sep. 19, Inspector General of Police in Sindh province Syed Kamal Shah unexpectedly admitted that the building was in fact owned by the man India regards as its most wanted criminal.

While in Dubai, Dawood was known for his lavish parties studded with film stars who were flown in from Mumbai and were ready to acknowledge his role in not only the financing, but even dictating themes for films. Indeed, critics began to complain of how film stars were reflecting too closely the mores of the city’s underworld.

One film critic commented that making films in Mumbai meant accommodating the whims of dons operating from Dubai and Karachi and this may include changes in the story line, choice of actors or actresses and even a role for the don’s girlfriend.

Another mobster, Abu Salem, who is wanted for the 1997 killing of a man who had built up a fortune pirating music cassettes, has frequently compelled directors to sign on his starlet girlfriend Monica Bedi. New Delhi prodded police in Lisbon to arrest Salem and Bedi in September last year but failed to have them extradited.

Among those arrested by police for the 1993 blasts was matinee idol Sunjay Dutt, who was incarcerated for three years, thus wrecking several films that he had signed up for.

Dutt still has to report to police once a week and appear for hearings in the 1993 blasts case, between rebuilding a career that has included lead roles in such popular films as ‘Vaastav’ (Fact), the story of a benevolent mafia don or godfather.

However shady some of these real-life stories are, though, Ketjar said: ”There is irony in the fact that actors with criminal connections enjoy overwhelming popularity among the Indian masses.