T-Series founder, Gulshan Kumar murder : Indian Film Industry & Underworld nexus

• During the 1990s the underworld was entering Bollywood through investment, purchase of overseas right , extortions etc. Gulshan Kumar murder was a shock for the whole country.
• He was more known for his religion acts even while he was associated with Bollywood and the music industry.

Brief Introduction

• Gulshan Kumar used to work at his father’s juice shop situated at Daryaganj of Purani Dilli. He entered into the business of selling cassettes and tapes, with good success he decided to start his own cassettes production business.
• He set up a studio in Noida and the company was named Super Cassettes Industries Private Limited popularly known as T-Series. The company started devotional music genre, Gulshan Kumar remained a religious person in his whole life.
• Gradually, T Series captured 65% of the total music industry by giving hits , producing young singers and directors. The personality of Gulshan Kumar is the reason behind the success of T-Series, he gave opportunity to small artists and made them big stars.

Gulshan Kumar murder conspiracy:

• The strategy of giving opportunity to new artists became the reason for his death conspiracy.
• Nadeem Saifi put pressure on Gulshan Kumar to promote his song. For the sake of old friendship Gulshan Kumar launched “Hi Ajnabi” for Nadeem Saifi in 1997. The album was a flop and the company faced huge loss, but Nadeem blamed Gulshan Kumar for its failure. He refused to promote other songs of Nadeem and this spoiled their friendship.
• Given Nadeem & Shravan was a big name then, Gulshan Kumar started looking for fresh talents. This step of Gulshan Kumar gave the wrong message to Nadeem that he was trying to destroy his career.
• Meanwhile, Gulshan Kumar was getting threats from the Mumbai underworld. Such threats were common in Bollywood, the underworld also used to interfere in the internal decisions of film making.
• Close aide of Dawood Abu demanded an undisclosed amount from Gulshan Kumar which he paid..
• Nadeem Saifi had good relations with Anees Ibrahim, younger brother of Dawood Ibrahim and Abu Salem. In 1997, He asked Abu Salem and Anees Ibrahim to teach Gulshan Kumar a lesson, Abu Salem again demanded 10 crores from Gulshan Kumar. But he refused.
• on August 8th, Any Salem threatened him that if he doesn’t fulfill his demands then his life will be in danger.
• On 12th August, 1997 Gulshan Kumar was returning from Jeeteshwar Temple, he was assassinated by Abdul Rauf alias Dawood Merchant, Abdul Rashid and one more person He was declared dead in Cooper Hospital.

Aftermath Gulshan Kumar death :

• Police declared Nadeem Saifi as the key conspirator, but he managed to escape to the UK . He got British Citizenship and runs a perfume business in Dubai.
• The owner of TIPS cassettes Ramesh Taurani was also arrested for this conspiracy. Ramesh Taurani paid Rs 25 Lakhs to Abdul Rauf and Abdul Rashid after the murder, total 26 people were named in this conspiracy in the chargesheet.
• Only Abdul Rauf was given life imprisonment by Bombay HC and the rest including Ramesh Taurani were released in the absence of proper evidence in 2002.
• In 2009 Abdul Rauf was released on parole but he escaped to Bangladesh, was arrested there and imprisoned for 5 years and was handed over to India in 2016.
• Abdul Rashid was also declared a key conspirator by Bombay HC and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2021.