Mumbai cops show off silver lining in cloud: Bollywood don-free!

Neither has the Mumbai Police got any fresh requests for assignment of cops for security by scared actors. ‘‘Threatening calls from all kinds of bhais is a thing of the past,’’ says AMPTPP (Association of Motion Pictures and TV Programme Producers) president Pehlaj Nihalani. ‘‘Producers now feel free to work.’’

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Pradip Sawant may be under a cloud in the Telgi scam — he was questioned by the SIT — but he brushes it aside as he pushes forward records (see box) to buttress these claims. There are many reasons, he says, for the lull after five years of gangs targeting filmstars:

• ‘‘Most gangsters have been eliminated in encounters. A few have fled the city,’’ says Sawant. Abu Salem lost four men after a threat to Manisha Koirala; Ejaz Lakdawala lost one shooter after an attack on producer Lawrence D’Souza in 2001; Hemant Pujari lost three shooters after he tried to muscle his way into Bollywood.

• The next big factor is 9/11, and its global impact. Dawood Ibrahim and his right hand man, Chhota Shakeel, have been keeping a low profile to dodge US intelligence.

• Salem’s arrest in Portugal late last year has also made Mumbai Police’s task easier. Earlier, more than 50 per cent of the threats to Bollywood personalities were attributed to Salem and his hirelings.

•Investigations into the alleged underworld financing of Chori Chori Chupke Chupke in 2000 had a deterrent effect on Bollywood personalities, who have now distanced themselves from gangs.

According to police sources, a majority of the gangsters have now sought safer haven outside the metropolis. Many have even started small-time businesses to avoid police hit squads.

Mahesh Bhatt, himself at the receiving end of mafia threat calls, says: ‘‘There is no denying that post 9/11, the world has resolved to take on terrorism.’’ However, he cautions that it would be ‘‘naive, premature and disastrous to believe that we have seen the end of urban terrorism. There was a period when I was offered police protection. But I denied it because I don’t think my life is so special that another person should take a bullet for me.’’

Asked if the slump in the film industry over the past few years could have also led to the decrease in threats, Bhatt says: ‘‘Hardly anyone in the film industry ever paid up. It was more a culture of terrorism that was whipped up to keep everyone in their good books. They wanted more that you do a film with one of their boys; not send X amount of money. But after Gulshan Kumar was shot dead, the message got home. There were whispers of extortion this year but people were tightlipped.’’

But other industry insiders believe the the poor box-office show over the past two years could also have a hand. There has been no spectacular hit, so the dons don’t have soft targets. ‘‘I haven’t heard of one threat to any of the biggies this year, though the C-grade producers still have their problems because of underworld links,’’ says an insider.

Bollywood has been a major killing ground for the underworld for the sheer revenues involved. The annual turnover of the film industry is estimated at over Rs 6,000 crore. On an average, 600 films are made each year.

Among those who have been threatened by the underworld and were provided police protection are Amitabh Bachchan, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Ajay Devgan, Rakesh and Hrithik Roshan, Govinda, Manisha Koirala, Subhash Ghai, Amrish Puri J.P. Dutta, Yash and Karan Johar, Govind Nihalani, Manmohan Shetty and Mahesh Bhatt.