Author: John Lancaster
Publication: The Washington Post
Date: January 23, 2003
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30270-2003Jan22.html
With her dimpled smile and wholesome
good looks, Preity Zinta has danced and lip-synced her way into the top
ranks of Bollywood stardom. But nothing prepared the 28-year-old daughter
of an Indian army officer for the critical acclaim that greeted her latest
performance, on the witness stand in a Bombay courtroom.
"Bravo Preity," exclaimed the headline
on an editorial in the Indian Express. "Bollywood's Only Real Hero," agreed
the Hindustan Times.
The outpouring of praise was prompted
by Zinta's willingness to do what no other Bollywood star has until now
had the nerve to do: offer evidence about the pervasive influence of organized
crime in the increasingly profitable and global Indian film industry.
In a closed court session this month,
the details of which were promptly leaked to the press, Preity testified
that she had been the target of an extortion threat two years ago by a
man claiming to represent Chota Shakeel, a Pakistan-based gangster. Her
testimony came in the high-profile trial of Bharat Shah, a leading Bombay
diamond merchant and film financier, on charges involving links to the
underworld.
Before Zinta's appearance, the prosecution
had called a dozen other film personalities to testify, but all had turned
uncooperative on the stand, recanting earlier statements or suddenly going
fuzzy on key details -- evidence, police say, of the underworld's power
to intimidate even the most macho and highly paid stars.
So what prompted India's "Preity
Hero," as one headline writer dubbed her, to break the code of silence
on the nexus between Bollywood and the mob?
In her first interview since testifying,
Zinta owned up to a mixture of motives, from an altruistic desire to "do
the right thing" to more pragmatic considerations, such as wanting to "get
out of the court" quickly and fearing the legal consequences of contradicting
her taped statement to police.
Asked whether she felt her testimony
had put her safety at risk, she replied, "for sure," lashing out angrily
at law enforcement officials who she believes leaked the details of the
supposedly secret court proceeding.
"It was a huge risk I was taking
in there, and I expected to be protected," she said, sitting in her office
in a Bombay suburb near several of the major studios. "I felt extremely
betrayed."
Zinta said she had no wish to launch
a personal crusade against underworld influence in Bollywood -- "I wouldn't
want it to be made into a big deal, because it's just going to create lots
of problems for me in the future" -- and defended fellow stars who have
been accused of cultivating chummy relationships with mob bosses based
in Karachi, Pakistan, and Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.
"If you meet someone and he comes
and says hello, you can't just tell him to take a walk -- you say hello
back," she said in her precise, convent-school English. "You think, maybe
if I say hello I can leave. Do you know what I'm trying to say? It's a
Catch-22 situation. It's not as black and white as we put it. It's not
just, 'If you keep away from them you're good, and if you mix with them
you're bad.' "
Zinta's ambivalence, to say nothing
of her fears, reflects what police officials contend is a high degree of
collusion -- some of it voluntary -- between mob figures and some of the
biggest names in Bollywood.
As in the Hollywood of an earlier
time, crime bosses have long cultivated social ties to the Indian film
industry, basking in the reflected glory of its glamorous stars. In the
mid-1990s, however, crime syndicates began looking for new sources of revenue
following the collapse of the Bombay real estate market, which had provided
them with money through extortion and other means, according to police
officials here.
Bollywood was an obvious target.
Churning out roughly 900 feature films a year, the industry's three- hour
song-and-dance epics command huge audiences both in India and around the
world, especially since the advent of new technologies such as satellite
television and DVDs. At the same time, Indian filmmakers have had difficulty
financing their projects by conventional means because India's government-owned
banks had refused to lend them money until 2000, when the government changed
its policy.
Crime syndicates were only too happy
to step into the breach, offering loans to producers at rates of up to
36 percent, police say. "Anyone who has money could enter into Bollywood
and start a movie," said D. Sivanandhan, an Indian Eliot Ness who investigated
organized crime in the movie industry as a joint police commissioner, a
job he has since left. "There were no qualifications, no entry fees. It
was a wide-open field."
One of the most important mob financiers
is alleged to be Shakeel, whose name turns up repeatedly in the Shah case
and who is thought to be living in Karachi. Based on transcripts of telephone
conversations that were secretly recorded by police and leaked to the Indian
press last summer, Shakeel appears to be on good terms with a number of
India's top producers, directors and stars, with whom he discusses financing
arrangements and sometimes even creative issues.
"Be careful during mixing when you
cut scenes," he tells one prominent director, who replies, "Yes sir. Yes
sir."
Shakeel also chats amiably with
Sanjay Dutt, a top Bollywood star who is facing criminal charges for alleged
links to Pakistan-based gangsters blamed for a series of bomb blasts that
killed 257 people here in 1993. When Dutt complains about another actor's
habit of showing up late on the set, according to the transcript, Shakeel
laughs and tells him not to worry: "He will be punctual in our project."
Crime bosses have also regarded
Bollywood personalities as ripe targets for extortion, and those who don't
cooperate can play a heavy price. A top music executive was killed by mob
hit men in 1997. And in 2000, armed assailants shot and wounded Rakesh
Roshan, a director and the father of heartthrob actor Hrithik Roshan. The
director was allegedly targeted for refusing a gangster's demand to line
up Hrithik's services for a movie he was backing.
Such episodes have contributed to
an atmosphere of fear among Bollywood's glitterati, some of whom are under
full-time police protection. (Zinta said she was offered protection after
her testimony but declined for the sake of her privacy.)
For law enforcement officials, nothing
so captures the corrosive influence of organized crime in Bollywood as
the case against Shah, the diamond merchant-turned-movie mogul who owns
a fleet of BMWs and reportedly paid 300,000 rupees, about $6,250, for an
autographed pillowcase used by Michael Jackson during a stay at Bombay's
Oberoi Hotel. The court case turns on allegations that Shah helped an associate
of Shakeel's -- another Karachi-based crime boss named Dawood Ibrahim --
in an extortion scheme. Shah, who is currently free on bail, has denied
any wrongdoing.
The case has also brought to light
allegations of mob involvement in the making of "Chori Chori, Chupke Chupke,"
in which Zinta played a leading role. During the shooting of the film,
Zinta received a phone call from a man who claimed to be an associate of
Shakeel's, ordering her to pay 5 million rupees, about $104,000, or "face
consequences," according to details of her testimony that were leaked.
Zinta declined to discuss the specifics
of her testimony but confirmed the essential thrust of the reports. In
the transcript of his phone conversation with Dutt, Shakeel denies threatening
Zinta, telling the actor, "I will never demand money from the female species."
Zinta is in some respects an unlikely
star. The daughter of an Indian army colonel who has since died, she was
raised on military bases and attended a convent boarding school. She holds
an English degree from Delhi University and pursued advanced studies in
criminal psychology. One brother is a major in an armored unit currently
stationed near the hostile frontier dividing Indian and Pakistani forces
in Kashmir; another brother sells cars in Petaluma, Calif.
In person, Zinta projects a high
degree of confidence, greeting a visitor with a direct gaze and a hearty
handshake. Demurely pretty in a pink sweater and flowered skirt, she said
she stumbled into acting largely by accident, though she seems to have
adapted comfortably to the role. She lives in a luxury high-rise, tools
around town in a black Lexus sport-utility vehicle and vacations in places
such as Cannes and Sydney. The details of her romantic life, including
a recent breakup with a top model, are breathlessly chronicled in the Indian
press; she is currently dating a Danish engineer named Lars.
While Zinta's testimony is at best
peripheral to the Shah case, police say she deserves credit for helping
to shine a light on the extent of mob influence in Bollywood -- an important
step in cleaning up the industry.
Perhaps because the job has yet
to be completed, Zinta isn't exactly welcoming the attention. "I had a
lot of people telling me I was very stupid," she said. "One thing everyone
told me is, 'Preity, one person can't change the system.' "
The most telling reaction may have
come at a television awards ceremony a few days after her court appearance.
"I met this guy who walked up to me and said, 'Congratulations, you're
the only crazy person in this industry.' "