Shahrukh Khan starrer Raees is all set to hit the cinemas, release date being January 25, 2017, but it has run into a spot of bother after being sued by Mushtaq Sheikh, the son of Abdul Latif, the man on whose life the film is purportedly based on. He has asked for a stay on the release of the movie and also made a Rs 101 cr demand for misrepresenting facts about the life of his father, a dreaded criminal. Curiously, the controversy is not about whether Latif was or was not a mafia don, but about the kind of businesses he ran. While no comments have come from Raees makers or even Shahrukh Khan, Mushtaq has been more forthcoming. His fight is over the legacy left behind by Abdul Latif and that too over the use or non-use of women in running his various business interests.
Raees is based in the 1980s and that is when Latif was making his name as quite a successful bootlegger in Popatiyawad – Gujarat is a dry state, but he was also allegedly involved in scores of murders. Latif started small as a young waiter in gambling joints. He picked up most of his knowledge from there and managed to use it well enough to leave the rest behind and become the preeminent don in Gujarat. From bootlegger, he also expanded into a hawala business and property too. He was reportedly a renowned behind-the-scenes philanthropist and his legend grew as he expanded into more and more areas. His success brought him closer to another criminal who was controlling the Mumbai underworld, the dreaded don Dawood Ibrahim. But that link eventually proved costly as in 1993 he became one of the biggest suspects in the devastating Mumbai blasts that were orchestrated by Ibrahim. It was also the time that his downfall was set in motion.
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By 1995 his success had run its course and he was arrested in Delhi. The end came in quite a violent, but ignoble way – after 2 years Latif was killed by police while he was trying to escape in Naroda Patiya, Ahmedabad. Latif allegedly had close links to the then power centres in Gujarat, but in the wake of the Mumbai blasts, he became a person very few would admit any links to.
The case made out by his son against Raees is that while Latif had almost 100 cases registered against him for bootlegging, but at no time in his career did he run a prostitution business, nor did he use women for bootlegging. Problem is that Raees, the movie, has used this aspect and it is creating one of the biggest controversies for the movie. In his reaction to The Indian Express, Sheikh’s lawyer Harsh Gajjar said, “These cases were for bootlegging and serious offences under TADA, however, at no point he ran a brothel or used women for delivering liquor. By attributing such false claims, respondents have defamed the family’s image in the society.”
