Yes we bring you the exclusive news that Shah Rukh Khan is all set to play a character inspired from Gujarati don Abdul Latif in his next film Raees. You may ask how can we say that ! Right ?
Well we did some research , dug in some old archive news to find out the resemblance between the characters played by Shah Rukh Khan and Farhan Akthar in Raees and the real life characters.
Well it is a universally known news that Shahrukh Khan plays a Gujarati don - a bootlegger and Farhan Akthar plays a cop. Now we bring forth the interesting part - the strong resemblance part.
Exclusive
Abdul Latif Shaikh Photo Courtesy - India Today
In the late 1980s, Abdul Latif was the underworld king of Gujarat. Based in Ahmedabad, politically well networked, he made a fortune in the bootlegging industry. His criminal empire in Gujarat extended from bootlegging - with which he began his career as a delivery boy in 1980 - and hawala to land deals and contract killings.
Although Latif's main business interest was said to be bootlegging, he was also alleged to have had a hand in receiving and distributing armssmuggled into the country through villages on the western coast of Gujarat
Latif. incidentally, is seen as a modern-day Robin Hood by the underprivileged Muslims of Ahmedabad. There are numerous instances of his having given jobs to Muslim youths: he was also known to run a parallel justice system. In November 1997, Latif was killed in an encounter by the Ahmedabad police. He was under arrest and had allegedly tried to escape while using the toilet.
Latif Shaikh's driver Sohrabuddin Sheikh
Photo Courtesy - Yahoo
Another important character in the scenario was his driver, Sohrabuddin Shaikh, apparently responsible for, in one daring move, hiding a huge cache of weapons meant for terrorist groups.
Our Take
Rahul Dholakia had said in various interviews that Raees will have three lead characters and that it is inspired by the modus operandi of real life gangsters, bureaucrats, politicians and police officers, spanning the last two decades. Raes covers a gamut of related issues ranging from revenues to religion, the politics of prohibition to communalism and mafiaraaj.
One thing which was extremely controversial about Abdul Latif is the fact that he was Dawood Ibrahim's close pal and was a big aide in the 1993 Bombay Blasts.
We are pretty sure that Shah Rukh won't go in such a controversial zone regarding political nexus and bomb blasts but you can not deny the fact that most of the story of Raees will be inspired from Abdul Latif Shaikh and his close aides though some aspects of the story will obviously be fictional as we will be seeing a big huge scale commercial film not a documentary.
One thing we can assure you is the fact that expect Raees to be one hell of a spine chilling crime thriller with kickass story which is partly non fiction and partly fiction and some superlative performances
With Inputs from Old Archives of India Today , Yahoo and IndianExpress
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