Word: bombay
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...Salem is a real-life gang lord who has kept similarly close tabs on Bollywood, even as he has amassed one of the longest rap sheets in Indian crime. The don named his sons after his favorite onscreen heroes, and even married a Bombay starlet, Monica Bedi. This summer, Indian reporters say he called to announce that he had helped finance Devdas, the most expensive film in Indian history and among this year's biggest hits...
...Salem saga is just one of the dramatic stories playing out in the press and on websites. Also in the news is Chota Shakeel, Bombay's current boss of bosses, whom the local police claim they have on 71 tapes of bugged calls. Among Shakeel's alleged phone buddies are actors, directors and producers. The tapes still must have their authenticity established, yet they add credence to the popular theory that in India, which makes more films per year than any other nation, the Mob controls most of the movie business...
...actor-politician Sunil Dutt and the luminous Nargis (the two starred in 1957's Mother India, the Hindi Gone With the Wind). Bollywood's alltime bad boy, Sanjay has a past littered with drugs, a love of guns and implication in a series of bomb blasts in Bombay in 1993. His alleged taped conversation with Shakeel sounds innocuous; it would put anyone but a government eavesdropper to sleep. Dutt asks about a promised mobile phone connection (which he could well afford on his own). He complains about the chronic tardiness of fellow star Govinda, who appeared with Dutt?and Bedi...
...Shah and Dutt are not alone; nearly every Indian moviemaker or shaker has schmoozed with the Mob at some point. "They get the calls and over a period of time they are seduced," says Shridhar Vagal, who heads the Bombay police's crime department. "Before they know it, they have accepted some help and then they go on making incremental compromises." According to Mahesh Bhatt, writer-producer of this year's hit thriller Raaz: "Some people may have embarrassing connections with the underworld, but most film people are just victims." Apparently, victims of a sustained assault by the underworld. Victims...
...director Mukesh Duggal was shot and killed in Bombay and producer Manmohan Shetty barely survived a murder attempt. In 2000, director Rakesh Roshan (Kaho Naa...Pyaar Hai), whose son Hrithik is the current heartthrob, survived a murder attempt after refusing to procure Hrithik's services for a Mob-backed film. Last year the onslaught started. Gangsters killed the secretary of Manisha Koirala, a top actress and niece of the former prime minister of Nepal. Hrithik, Govinda, veteran actor Amrish Puri and top director Karan Johar (Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham) were assigned armed police protection after receiving death threats. And earlier...