Bollywood and the underworld have a long history together. The threat posed by the underworld to Hindi cinema was so great in the 1980s and 1990s that it rocked the business. Following the popularity of Kaho Naa, T-Series owner Gulshan Kumar passed away. Rakesh Roshan was shot in public in Pyaar Hai when he refused to fulfill the underworld’s demands for extortion.
It is also believed that underworld individuals used to finance Bollywood movies in the 1990s. In addition, they exerted pressure on producers and directors to use actresses who were close to them in their films. A number of Bollywood actresses were associated with Dawood Ibrahim. Reports of their purported connections to Dawood ranged from Mamta Kulkarni to Ram Teri Ganga Maili’s Mandakini. Anita Ayub, the former heroine of Dev Anand, was among the actresses who garnered media attention for her purported liaison with Dawood.