Following up these posts (1& 2)
Bollywood isn't all happy songs and dances, beautiful people and swoony love stories. Behind all that, lie sometimes dark and disturbing scandals, even crimes, sometimes committed by the most beloved artists. Discover some of the darkest Bollywood scandals under the cut.
Major warning for domestic violence and suicide.
1. Deadly Sanjay Dutt
Sanjay Dutt is the son of famous actors Sunil Dutt and Nargis Dutt. Both Sanjay's father and his sister became members of Parliament. Starting his career in the 80s, Sanjay became a huge star, doing action, comedy and romance films and playing up a bad boy image. His nickname was Deadly Dutt.
Well, let's say he was deadly in more ways than one. Dutt has notorious and extreme drinking and drug problems and often got into violent verbal and physical spats with various people.
But here's where things take a way darker turn. In 1993, there were a series of deadly bomb blasts in Mumbai, known as the "Black Friday bombings", killing over 250 people and injuring over 700. The terrorist attack had been allegedly orchestrated by a Muslim mafia organization, in retalion for the Muslim casualties of Hindu-Muslim clashes that same year. Sanjay is a Hindu, but he had ties to the underworld group responsible for the attacks.
According to the Indian Express, the terrorists not only wanted to attack the city, they also aimed to arm members of their community to fight in communal clashes they expected the blasts to trigger. Assault rifles, pistols and hand grenades were brought from Pakistan and hidden in India. One consignment was allegedly hidden by gangsters/terrorists in Sanjay Dutt's house with the actor's agreement.
One newspaper reported that the police got to know of Dutt's involvement, allegedly causing Dutt to panic and call friend Yusuf Nullwala to ask him to get rid of the weapons. Nullwala tried to destroy them. However, the barrel of the AK-56 rifle and a 9mm pistol could not be destroyed and Nullwala took them to back to Sanjay's house, from where they were recovered when police arrested him under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Prevention Act (TADA).
Initially, Sanjay Dutt confessed, but then retracted his statement. Dutt later claimed he had retained only one gun for self protection, a claim investigating officers have scoffed at. He was accused of illegal possesion of a weapon, as well as plotting to blow up the Indian Stock Exchange and the Reserve Bank of India.
During the trial, Sanjay was in and out of jail, with the longest stretch in being 16 months. His trial took many years and there was ample evidence of Sanjay's mafia ties including a phone tap of him telling mobster Chhota Sakeel to "straighten out" fellow actor Govinda. In 2006-7, the TADA court convicted him of illegal possession of arms (under the Arms Act) but acquitted him of the terror charges. He took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, but the verdict was upheld, even if the sentence was minimal. There is a lot of criticism about the handling of the case, as, for example, evidence linking Dutt to key figures of the terrorist conspiracy was ommitted from the trial.
In 2013, before surrendering, he asked the Supreme Court for a period of four weeks to complete his movies before returning to jail, which was granted by the judges on "humanitarian grounds." He finally surrendered, and despite a series of paroles and furloughs, served almost 3 years (the sentence was longer, but he was released earlier for "good behavior"). In 2016 he was released, and today he is a free man.
So how is his career today? Not bad at all. This is Bollywood, and Bollywood protects their own. Many actors and filmmakers have defended him in public as a kind of bumbling, naive guy who was led astray by bad people. Actor turned politician Shatrughan Sinha famously commented on the accusation that Sanjay knew about the blasts beforehand: "Don't be ridiculous, he doesn't even know what a stock exchange IS!". He still gets roles (like in the super hit P.K. thanks to buddy Aamir Khan) and has a whole slew of films coming out. And there's a biopic about him in the works, by successful director Raju Hirani, starring industry darling Ranbir Kapoor, expected to be a hit.
2. Aditya Pancholi, evil creep
A married man, actor Aditya Pancholi had many adulterous affairs and was brazen about them, taking his "girlfriends" to public events on his arm. One of these "girlfriends" was actress Kangana Ranaut, a small-town girl who back then was only just starting in Bollywood. According to Kangana, the relationship started when she was underage and lasted four and a half years. Aditya has admitted to the affair, saying "We were as good as husband and wife". They were often pictured together.
The relationship was an abusive one. Pancholi has a reputation for being a violent man (he's been arrested over various violent incidents and convicted of assault), and Kangana, not one for mincing words, publicly commented that he used to beat her and harass her. "It was a very difficult and very harsh time. I was physically abused. I don’t have to go to details. I felt trapped. You feel people might help you. But there are no free lunches. But when you are going you fall for it. This man who was my father’s age hit me hard on my head when I was 17. I started bleeding. I took out my sandal and hit him head hard and he started to bleed too. I lodged an FIR against the man. He was my mentor turned tormentor.”
Kangana, desperate for help, turned even to Aditya's wife, Zarina Wahab."I’m a year younger than his daughter. I was a minor. For me, this was all very new – the world that I had come into. I remember going to his wife and meeting her, and I’m like ‘Please save me! I’m younger than your daughter. I’m a minor and I can’t tell my parents.’".
Zarina refused to help, and allegedly said: "For me the greatest relief is that he doesn’t come home anymore." Zarina herself commented to the press about not helping Kangana when this story surfaced: "There is no question of this happening. If she is dating my husband how can she come to me? People who talk like this should have some brains!". She also asked:"If she found Aditya to be such a bad person why was she with him?".
Kangana's sister, Rangoli, confirmed all this publicly and called Aditya an "evil creep". She said that Zarina attempted to bribe Kangana with diamonds and clothes to stop her going to the police.
Kangana also recounted an incident in which she jumped out of her window and tried to hide from Pancholi. "He had an extra key of my rented house and as soon as he inserted the key I jumped off the window. I knowingly took the house on the first floor. I ran bare foot and my knees even got bruised. I checked in into a hotel.. In the morning when I woke up, the doorbell rang and when I peeped through the key hole, he was standing out there. He tracked me even there."
Recalling one more incident, she says "When I was shooting, he called me up and started abusing. After the shooting got over, he started chasing my rikshaw with his car and rammed into it. Then, I called [director] Anurag Basu, at that time I was shooting for his movie Metro, he and his wife kept me secretly in their office for 15 days. Anurag's wife also brought few clothes for me."
Eventually, Kangana and Aditya broke up after she filed a complaint against him for physically abusing her. The police stepped in and got him to stay away from her. In his defense, he called Kangana a "mad girl" and a liar.
This is far from the only sordid scandal Aditya Pancholi is involved in. Another one of his "girlfriends" was actress Pooja Bedi. The couple broke up when Pooja's 15-year-old maid told her she had been raped by Pancholi. However, nothing came of the case.
Pancholi was once very successful, but he is still working regularly, although now mostly in villainous roles (probably due to his black reputation, his scary wax-melting face and unconvincing hairplugs). It does help that he's friends with the powerful Salman Khan (birds of a feather...). Next year he will be seen in Race 3 alongside Salman and Amitabh Bachchan. No doubt it will be a super hit.
3. Sooraj Pancholi: with heroes like these...
What a great family the Pancholis are. Aditya's son, Sooraj Pancholi, was in a relationship with the actress Jiah Khan. She had made quite a splash in the movie Ghajini opposite Aamir Khan and was expected to become big in the industry.
But Jiah was found dead in 2013, hanging from a ceiling fan. She was 25. In the room was a disturbing handwritten 6-page note, in which she talks about her relationship with Sooraj.
"After all the pain, the rape, the abuse, the torture I have seen previously I didn't deserve this. I didn't see any love or commitment from you. I just became increasingly scared that you would hurt me mentally or physically."
She accuses him of cheating on her and forcing her to have an abortion. Sooraj, who wanted to make it big in Bollywood, allegedly didn't want anyone to know about a pregnancy out of wedlock. During the investigation on Jiah's death, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) uncovered gruesome details of her botched abortion, which allegedly culminated in Jiah hemorrhaging as the foetus had not been expelled from her body, and Sooraj then allegedly extricating the foetus himself and disposing of it in the toilet, allegedly because he didn't want to risk his relationship becoming public if he took Jiah to a hospital. The night Jiah died, he had reportedly sent abusive texts to her.
Jiah's death was ruled a suicide by the police. Sooraj was arrested under the charge of abbetting her suicide, but later released. The CBI said "The willful conduct of the accused, narrated in the note of [...] Jiah Khan, and her intimate relationship, physical abuse, mental and physical torture by Sooraj, which she experienced allegedly led the deceased to commit suicide." The case against Sooraj is ongoing.
Jiah's mother, Rabbyia, however, has been fighting for years to prove that Jiah's death was a murder staged to look like a suicide. Sooraj's family is suing her for defamation over these claims. Rabbiya has hired independent forensic experts from Ireland, the UK and India. All have found the official investigation wanting. The UK expert says the well-defined double ligature marks around Jiah’s neck could not be explained by “simple hanging by a dupatta, which is made of a soft, wide cotton fabric” and that the police have not given serious consideration to the possibility of murder. The dupatta used as a noose actually went missing and was later recovered. Rabbiya says she has received anonymous death threats to stop pursuing the murder angle. “One stranger came to my gate and warned me that I still had two other daughters, and I should worry about them”.
After the media attention died down a bit, Sooraj Pancholi had his chance at a Bollywood debut thanks to family friend Salman Khan. Sooraj was the lead of "Hero", a 2015 romantic action film produced by Salman's banner. He has recently been signed to another romantic action movie to be directed by Prabhudheva and enjoys a large following on Instagram.
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