Safety first for bollywood

"Before retiring for the night, I pulled out my licensed .32 revolver, loaded it and put it under my pillow," Bachchan, 68, wrote in his blog a few days after the incident. Bachchan is among the few Bollywood biggies who are already armed.

"I also have a licensed firearm which I have kept for my personal security. I decided to have a firearm handy after there was an armed robbery at my house a year back which deeply affected my wife and children. For the first time I felt what deep impact these things can have in your life," says a prominent filmmaker who also holds a license for a pistol.

A lot of stars, without exception, have refused to travel to Pakistan or certain areas of India even if a red-carpet have been rolled out to them. Some of them admit to paranoia while shooting in terror-stricken zones.

Recalls actress Bipasha Basu of the time she shot for a film in Kashmir , andstopped the shooting mid-way, "A huge crowd used to gather around the shooting area. They demanded to know how Kashmir would be portrayed in the film. One day, it went out of hand and got scary."

Most stars seek terrorist combat experts when shooting in public places vulnerbale to terror attacks. "We have upgraded ourselves and tied up with a foreign security agency to upgrade ourselves in close protection (bodyguards). Things have changed a lot post 26/11 which was actually a national security breach. But the changes are for the better," says actor Ronit Roy, who specializes in star security and operates a private security of his own.