Overview
- In a new ANI interview, ex–Joint CP Crime D Sivanandhan alleges dons such as Dawood Ibrahim and Abu Salem bankrolled and steered high-profile Hindi films in the 1990s.
- He names Satya, Company, Daddy, Shootout at Lokhandwala and Shootout at Wadala as mafia-funded to burnish gangster images, and says 1970s titles like Deewaar and Muqaddar Ka Sikandar were similarly financed.
- Sivanandhan recounts seeing a special flight carry a leading actor and about 83 performers to Dubai to entertain Dawood Ibrahim’s daughter, saying stars felt they could not refuse.
- He says actor Govinda told him he had to perform for the don, and he describes producers taking loans at 60–80% interest under threats that evoked the daylight killing of T-Series founder Gulshan Kumar.
- Acknowledging limited protection for artists at the time, he credits late-1990s police operations with weakening underworld control and helping shift film financing toward formal, legal channels.