MUMBAI: Abbas-Mustan’s directorial Chori Chori Chupke Chupke starring Salman Khan, Rani Mukherji, and Preity Zinta made headlines for the wrong reasons. The Mumbai Police nabbed the film’s producer, Nazim Rizvi, days before its December 22, 2000, release date.

The principal charge against the producer was that he was being funded by the feared D-Company operative, Chhota Shakeel, and that they pressured Salman Khan to sign up for the film.

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The case became famous because of the number of film personalities, including Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt, and even Rakesh Roshan, a mafia hit job survivor, who had turned hostile and went back on the depositions they had made to the cops. The sole exception was Preity Zinta.

In an in-camera deposition made in the court of the then Sessions Judge, A.P. Bhangale, Preity admitted having received an extortion threat from a Chhota Shakeel gang member, but she had dismissed it as a crank call.

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Both Rizvi and his assistant, Abdul Rahim Allahbaksh Khan, were sentenced to six years’ rigorous imprisonment (by then, they’d already spent 32 months in jail). The judge also imposed a fine of Rs 5,00,000 each on Rizvi and Khan.

The two had been found guilty under MCOCA of forging links with Chhota Shakeel in order to target film personalities for personal gains.

Credit: Koimoi