Additionally, it did not help Shakeel’s cause that Salem was tremendously ambitious and wanted to procure international distribution rights for films, in addition to a number of other plans to secure control of Bollywood at home and overseas. Shakeel was sunk in a private pit of gloom, until suddenly out of the blue, the unimaginable occurred. Sometime around 1999, Anees had parted ways with Salem, something Shakeel had never imagined would happen. There were several reasons for the fallout, including Anees suspecting Salem of embezzling his money and not giving a clear account. It was not just that. The fear that Anees might get him killed had forced Salem out of Dubai. Shakeel could scarcely believe his luck.
Unopposed, Shakeel decided to try his hand at the kind of work he had been salivating over for years. One of the first things he did was to start hunting for a frontman, a face of the operation. Someone to play big boss and keep Shakeel’s role in the scheme of things under wraps. The polished, stylish, and suave Nazeem Rizvi (also referred to as Raja saab) was identified for this purpose. His job was to contact the biggest names and get them to sign up for films that would be made as per Shakeel’s designs. Moreover, Rizvi would have to get them to agree to work on the film on the designated days of the year. In Bollywood parlance, this is referred to as the slightly misleading phrase ‘getting dates’.
Rizvi got down to business immediately and set about assembling a team that included director duo Abbas and Mustan Burmawalla, referred to commonly as Abbas-Mustan. Shakeel was specific about his demands for what would be his first film. He wanted a big star. That was non-negotiable. The biggest open secret about Bollywood, as Shakeel had realised, was that star power sells more than any other element of a film, be it a brilliant plot, excellent direction, or fancy foreign locales. In other words, even a potential dud of a film could be a box office hit if it was packed with enough stars.
Getting Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan for the film was Shakeel’s topmost priority. Accordingly, Rizvi began to make rounds of various studios in an effort to hobnob with the stars and get them to sign on for the film. Coincidentally, the police’s Crime Branch had been keeping tabs on phone calls made by Chhota Shakeel from 14 October to 14 November 2000. This was when the police unearthed some horrifying details that helped establish the seedy links between Bollywood and the underworld as the latter was making massive inroads into Bollywood.
For the film that Abbas-Mustan were attached to direct, which later came to be known as Chori Chori Chupke Chupke, Rizvi had secured the services of Salman, Rani Mukherji, and Preity Zinta. The Crime Branch had discovered, through monitoring telephone conversations, that Rizvi was a mere pawn in the whole game. The rationale for having a frontman was basically that Shakeel could play it safe, especially as this was his first foray into Bollywood. If the film was a hit at the box office, the cash registers would start ringing and stars would want to come and work on the next film Rizvi was working on. But if it was a flop, it was merely a case of Shakeel having to cut his losses and finding a new frontman; his own reputation in the film business would remain untarnished.
Rizvi’s modus operandi was not very complicated at all. His job was to visit the sets on which Salman and Shah Rukh were working at the time and meet them. After a few threats in the past from Salem, Shahrukh strictly avoided meeting any shady strangers. Consequently, whenever Rizvi tried to approach him or turned up on the set, Shahrukh avoided him like the plague. A frustrated Rizvi complained to Shakeel about how he had tried his best to approach Shah Rukh but was thwarted every time. There was even an instance when Shahrukh fled to Rani’s vanity van and sat there for over an hour before inexplicably disappearing from the set. When Rizvi complained to Shakeel on the phone, the Crime Branch cops were listening. They were soon to become familiar with a new set of nicknames for Bollywood’s stars.
In the course of keeping tabs on the developments in this Bollywood-underworld nexus, the police realised that the underworld had a unique set of code names for members of the film fraternity. Just as the underworld had its own lingo for a gun, a car, or money, there was now a list of names used to refer to certain big names inconspicuously to avoid detection. The names ranged from the obvious Jodi (pair) for Abbas-Mustan, BS for diamond merchant and film financier Bharat Shah and Pehelwan (muscular man) for Salman, to the amusing Chikna (chocolate-faced) for Hrithik Roshan and Takla (baldy) for his father Rakesh, right to the offensive Hakla (the stutterer) for Shah Rukh.
A transcript of several conversations between Chhota Shakeel and Rizvi, which later became part of the chargesheet against Nazim Rizvi, Bharat Shah, Chhota Shakeel, and other aides, became a gold mine of information for the Mumbai police. One such transcript is produced below.
Rizvi: Chikne ka show hai. Yeh Hakla hai apna, usmein jaa raha hai. [Hrithik has a show and Shah Rukh is going for it].
Shakeel: Achha. [Okay].
Rizvi: Kyonki kya hua tha, aaj mujhe pata lagaa ki apne yahaan jo hai na Rani? [Do you know what happened today? You know Rani Mukherjee right?]
Shakeel: Haan, haan. [Yes, yes].
Rizvi: Aaj yeh apna Hakla aayaa aur uski van mein ghusa raha. Dedh ghante tak. Toh main usko bola ki jaate time zara mujhko milke jaana, meri van mein. [Today Shah Rukh came and sat in her van for around an hour and a half. I told him to come and meet me in my van before he left the set.]
Shakeel: Haan. [Yes].
Rizvi: Bola aata hoon lekin yeh chupke se nikal gaya vahaan se, maine maloom kiya. [After telling me he would come and meet me, I found out later that he had quietly slipped away].
Shakeel tried to reassure Rizvi that he would take care of Shah Rukh because the don could see that Rizvi was beginning to get desperate, losing whatever little composure he had left.
In Rizvi’s moments of anxiety, he would regularly visit Salman and say politely, ‘Excuse me, Salman Khan. Could you please speak to Shakeel bhai?’ The muscular movie star did not take him seriously at all and snubbed him regularly. Rizvi was very often dragged kicking and screaming to the gates and kicked off the set by the security guards there.
Fed up with Rizvi’s incompetence, Shakeel sent his henchman Anjum Fazlani to the set one day, armed with nothing but a mobile phone and the tangible air of confidence a life of violence affords. Fazlani walked in and handed the phone over to Salman, telling him that Shakeel was on the line and wished to speak with the actor. Salman took the phone and found himself backed into a corner, with no possible way to deny Shakeel his demands. Salman was forced to work in the film. Shakeel funded it, pumping 15 crore rupees into this first venture, and people like the Morani brothers were strong-armed into contributing to the film as well.
Buoyed by the early takings of the film, Rizvi and Shakeel were now discussing the marketing of the film. Talks revolved around details such as the selection of television channels that would air promos of the film and the way in which the soundtrack should be released. Rizvi told his boss that he estimated that the film would net a profit of at least 6 crore rupees and thereafter, no one would refuse to work with him. A content and calm Shakeel went on to tell Rizvi not to worry about people coming to work with him; if push came to shove, the don would create such havoc in the industry that no one would dream of saying no.
To cover their own tracks and keep up a facade of respectability, lastly, Rizvi and Shakeel also discussed putting the names of one of their wives down as producer. This, they reasoned, would keep them out of harm’s way.
Shakeel: Apni cassette release kab hai? [When is our cassette set to be released?]
Rizvi: 1 November. 7 mein market mein aa jaayegi aur 9 ko hamaari party ho jaayegi. [Release is on November 1. It’ll be in stores by November 7 and our party will be held on the 9th.]
Shakeel: Opening woh cassette ke gaanon ki kis se kar rahe hain? [Whom are we getting for the music launch?]
Rizvi: Is.. Is... Is.... Pehelwaan se. Isise maine phone kiy
a tha. Munasib rahega aur ismein bhi achha value hai. [We’ll get Salman to do it. I’ve spoken to him on the phone. It’ll be appropriate and good value if he does it.]
[On the topic of promotion.]
Shakeel: SAB TV hai. STAR hai. Yeh na public aaj kal SAB TV, STAR TV bahut dekh rahe hain. [There’s SAB TV. There’s STAR. The public these days watches a lot of SAB TV and STAR TV.]
Rizvi: SAB mein toh shuroo hua na. [Promotion has already begun on SAB.]
Shakeel: SAB mein kahaan shuroo hua? [Where has it already started on SAB?]
Rizvi: Haan ho gaya. SAB waalon ne bola tha ki programme mein daalaa gaya. Toh Monday se ya aaj se ho gaya shaayad. [Yes, it’s begun. The SAB people told me that they would introduce our promos in their programmes. So, from Monday onwards, or perhaps they’ve already started from today.]
Shakeel: Nahi. Nahi. Daala nahi hai. SAB mein Blockbuster mein aata hai na? [No. No. They haven’t done anything. On SAB, it should appear on ‘Blockbuster’, right?]
Rizvi: Haan daalenge. Abhi coming week mein aapka SAB mein bhi shuroo ho jaayega. STAR mein bhi shuroo ho jaayega. [Yes, they’ll put it. Now in the coming week, it’ll start on SAB and STAR as well.]
Shakeel: Nahi nahi. Asal kya hai na publicity bhi sabse ahmiyat rakhti hai na. Publicity toh bahut zaroori hai kyunki aadmiyon ko samajh mein aata hai. Abhi dekho, doosre picture SAB mein aate hain. Sab channel mein aate hain. Khaali apna jo hai na Zee mein aur ETS mein slowly bajta hai. Kisko diya music? [No no. The reality is that publicity is the most important thing, right? Look, other films are on SAB and they find a way to appear on all channels. Only ours is slowly gathering steam on Zee and ETS. Whom have you given the music to?]
Rizvi: Universal. Woh London ki company hai. [Universal. It’s that company from London.]
Shakeel: Bewakoof woh SAB mein nahi daala? Do-teen channel mein daal. [You fool, why didn’t you put it on SAB? Put it on two or three channels.]
Rizvi: Nahi. Uska chakkar aur hai, bhai. Apne jo yeh daalte hain na. Publicity jab start karte hain toh pehle A-Class channels mein daalte hain, phir B, phir C. Toh yeh jo Sony aur yeh Zee hai na, woh A mein aate hain. Purane hain. [No. There’s another issue with that. When we start the publicity campaign, we first target the A-Class channels, then B, and then C. So this Sony and Zee, they fall under the A category, because they’re old, established channels)
Shakeel: Achha. [Okay.]
Rizvi: Yeh iske baad second aata hai STAR aur SAB ka number. Third aata hai ETS vagera aur jitne channel hain. [After that in the second list are STAR and SAB and then finally are ETC and all the other such channels.]
[On the topic of rival films.]
Shakeel: Maine suna hai ki woh Mohabbatein achhi rahi. [I heard Mohabbatein did well.]
Rizvi: Nahi. Nahi achhi hai. Matlab paone chaar ghante ki. Aap samajh lijiye. Woh kya achhi hogi? [No, it’s not doing well. I mean it’s three and three-quarter hours long. You can imagine what it’s like. How could it possibly be good?]
Shakeel: Aur uski? Mission [Mission Kashmir] ki? [And what about Mission Kashmir?]
Rizvi: Nahi woh bhi koi khaas nahi hai. Mission se thodi behtar hai Mohabbatein. [Mohabbatein is a little better than Mission Kashmir.]
Shakeel: Maine suna Sanju ki tareef ki hai logon ne. [I’ve heard people have praised Sanjay Dutt’s work in Mission Kashmir.]
Rizvi: Uski tareef hai. Baaki picture mein dum nahi hai. [His work is good. But the rest of the film is poor.]
Shakeel: Aur Chikna? Woh gaandu jaana chahiye. Woh bhadwa. [And Hrithik? That arse should really get it. That pimp.]
Rizvi: Woh Chikne ki to apne dostne hi uski buraai likh di hai Times mein. Hu hu hu. Fiza waale ne. Likha kuchh khaas nahi kar paaya. [Hrithik’s own friend wrote some really bad stuff about him in the Times. Hu hu hu. The Fiza guy—referring to critic and filmmaker Khalid Mohammed. He wrote that Hrithik wasn’t able to do anything.]
The case was filed under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), one of the most stringent crime enforcement laws ever. When the case came up in the MCOCA court, the police presented thirty-one witnesses and demonstrated how Rizvi was taking instructions from Shakeel and then squealing on people who were uncooperative. So, if Shahrukh was unwilling to speak to Rizvi, the latter would complain to Shakeel. Similarly, when Hrithik—who on seeing the pre-release response to Chori Chori Chupke Chupke considered working on Rizvi’s next project—was told by his father not to work with these people from the underworld, Rizvi complained to Shakeel and the don assured his frontman that he would threaten Rakesh in such a way that he would never say or do anything against the underworld’s wishes again.
Rizvi: Yeh Takla apna. Jodi ke paas kahaani bhi complete hai aur hero ne toh final kiya hai, uske bete ne. Aur usne market mein bolna shuroo kiya hai ki main Rizvi sahab ke liye kaam kar raha hoon, jodi ki next film kar raha hoon. [This Rakesh... Abbas-Mustan have already completed the story and finalised the hero—Rakesh’s son who has already started talking about how he’s working in my project, Abbas-Mustan’s next film.]
Shakeel: Toh ek kaam karo na. Monday ya Tuesday site pe uske chale jaana, Chikne ke. Bolna apne baap ko samjha chutiya, bolna teri life kharab ho jaayegi.[Then do as I tell you. On Monday or Tuesday go to the site where Hrithik is presently filming and tell him to explain to his fucking father that his life will be ruined if Rakesh keeps interfering.]
Rizvi: Bilkul bilkul. [Absolutely.]
Shakeel: Bolna bhai ne bola tera baap teri life kharab kar dega. [Tell him that I said that his dad will end up ruining his life.]
The conversation was a little worrisome and the cops had now become edgy with Shakeel’s designs on the film industry.
In January 2001, Shakeel decided to make Rakesh Roshan an example for the industry and sent his men to open fire on him just to scare him. Subsequent investigations revealed that the shooter wanted to shoot at the car, but unfortunately a bullet grazed Rakesh’s arm. The bald filmmaker, already under a lot of pressure, had put up a brave front in the face of the intimidation of Mumbai’s underworld. He had defied Shakeel one time too many.
When Shakeel’s men ambushed Rakesh as he was getting into his car outside his office, he was taken by surprise as they opened fire on him. Despite the bullet injuries, Roshan drove off himself and reached Cooper Hospital safely. Calm in the face of this unexpected adversity, he saw a doctor and called his family members to tell them what had happened.
The shooting incident spread panic waves in the film industry. A pall of fear and terror descended on its glamorous denizens.
There was widespread panic and an atmosphere of intense paranoia within the film fraternity; most of its members began to fear for their safety. While cops were listening they found that during the course of one of the conversations Shakeel had wanted Ajay Devgn to shift the dates of his film Raju Chacha, so that they did not clash with those of Chori Chori Chupke Chupke. As a result, Kumar Mangal (Ajay’s secretary) was threatened.
Moreover, Shakeel had said in one of his conversations that if Shah Rukh continued to be non-compliant, shots should be fired at his car; Shakeel had claimed boastfully that within half an hour, the star would call back and humbly say that he was ready to work. But the plan was, for some inexplicable reason, never acted upon. Perhaps he was merely boasting, and actually had no intention of doing this.
It was around this point that the police realised that they could not wait any longer and would have to move in on the targets. Rizvi was arrested under the MCOCA on 13 November and subsequently, the man known to the underworld as BS was also picked up. Realising that a whopping eighty-four witnesses were needed to convict Rizvi, the police was on the warpath. No less than sixty-six police officers had been put on surveillance and in investigating teams in order to create an airtight case against Rizvi, identifying him as Shakeel’s henchman.
Sh
akeel’s henchman and Rizvi’s assistant Abdul Rahim Allah Baksh and later Anjum Fazlani were also arrested for their complicity. It was the first time that anyone had seen a police commissioner (Mahesh Narayan Singh) take such severe action against the film fraternity. He demanded that everyone associated with the film be quizzed at length, irrespective of whether it was a big name like Salman or a simple spot boy on the set. It was later established that Salman, Rani, Abbas-Mustan, and the others had participated in the film under duress as their lives were in danger and so, they were not detained further, nor were charges filed against them.
Unfortunately for Shah, he was unable to provide this sort of information and he was subsequently booked under the MCOCA by Singh. Shah, who was well-connected and knew some senior Shiv Sena leaders in Mumbai—and even senior politician L.K. Advani, among his close contacts in Delhi—was unable to wriggle out of this mess. After appealing against the verdict in the Supreme Court, however, Shah was able to get out of jail after only a year. There was no such luck for Rizvi, who was convicted and spent five years in jail. Needless to say, Shakeel got away scot free.
The rights to Chori Chori Chupke Chupke were later taken over by the government. Realising that the film was an underworld venture, filmgoers began to give it the cold shoulder and the film tanked horribly in the box office. Far from Rizvi’s projections of 6 crore rupees and above, the film managed to make only a paltry 25 lakh rupees. Sensing this rapidly deteriorating situation, Shakeel realised that he had one last throw of the dice left. To try and stymie the rapidly declining ticket sales, Shakeel called up a number of top English dailies to put out stories that Chori Chori Chupke Chupke was not his film, but Shah’s film. He claimed that people were just spreading rumours against him to try and make him seem like a villain trying to take over Bollywood.
Unfortunately, the horse had already bolted and no matter how securely he tried to lock the stable door, there was no escaping the fact that it was too late. Besides, the police had ample transcripts of phone conversations linking Shakeel to the film. Chori Chori Chupke Chupke had flopped massively, as had the don’s short stint in Bollywood.