The ugly side of Mumbai celebrities.
By Tathagata Mitra
BANGALORE: Singer Ankit Tiwari has been arrested on allegations of rape. Actor Salman Khan may be sentenced to jail for 10 years if convicted in an accident he was involved in almost 12 years ago, which killed one person and injured four others. Actor Sanjay Dutt is in jail, serving a sentence of five years for illegal possession of arms related to the 1993 Mumbai blasts.
These are but only a few of the top Bollywood stars and celebrities who have had a brush with the law and legal authorities over the years.
Dutt, in fact, has a long history with the law enforcement. He was sentenced to six years in prison in 2007, and before that he was arrested under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) in 1993. His first stint in prison, however, was much before that, when he spent five months in prison due to possession of illegal substances.
Shiney Ahuja (Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi),an up and coming Bollywood actor was sentenced to seven years in jail in early 2011. He was convicted for raping his housemaid.
Jiah Khan (Housefull, Ghajini), a British American actress who appeared in Hindi films committed suicide in 2013, allegedly due to altercations with her boyfriend Suraj Pancholi, son of veteran actor Aditya Pancholi. Suraj Pancholi ended up in jail, with the controversy over the suicide still making headlines in India.
The King of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan himself landed himself in a soup when during the IPL season of 2012 he was accused by Maharashtra Cricket Association of abusing an official and manhandling a security guard. This led to him being banned from the Wankhede stadium.
Actors Saif Ali Khan and Bilal Amrohi and their businessman friend Shakeel Ladak, were charged for assault, after they got into an altercation with South Africa-based businessman Iqbal Mir Sharma and his father-in-law Raman Patel, at a hotel in Mumbai, in 2012. Khan has also been charged in the past along with Salman Khan in the chinkara and blackbuck poaching case in Rajasthan.
High profile actor Arjun Rampal got embroiled with The India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC), after the latter sent him a legal notice over allegations of rent dues of two crore rupees, on a lounge bar.
And who can forget the curious case of the talented actor Raghubir Yadav (Delhi-6, Peepli Live), a veteran of the theatre and the film industry, who went missing in late 2009. His whereabouts were unknown to his friends and family. His absconding was attributed to problems in his domestic life, relating to his wife and another unknown actress. He was found six months later in June 2010 when he stepped out of the Rajdhani Express in Mumbai. Coincidentally enough, it was his wife, Purnima who had spotted him. He was found with his the then companion Roshni Achreja.