Blood in Bollywood

Tinsel town divas and dudettes lead fast lives. However, at times, as the recent scandals surrounding the arrest of feline-featured Page 3 regular Simrin Sood and the murder of Nepalese junior artist Meenakshi Thapa reveal, it is also a world fraught with danger. We list you three instances when tinsel town folks met rather violent deaths at the hands of someone they loved...

1.       Black Birthday: Producer Brij Sadanah shoots dead his family; then kills himself

Kamal Sadanah

It was October 21, 1990. It was producer Kamal Sadanah's 20th birthday party and he was celebrating it at his Bandra bungalow with close friends. At half past midnight, his father, producer Brij Sadanah, brought out a Smith & Wesson and shot dead his wife in the living room. Kamal Sadanah and friends came running out of his room. Then Brij Sadanah aimed the gun at his daughter and shot her too. A third bullet ripped past Kamal Sadanah's neck and the fourth he literally caught in the palm of his hand. During the time that Kamal Sadanah was being treated at hospital, his father, the producer Victoria No. 203 and Yeh Raat Phir Na Aayegi, shot himself in the head too. A photograph of Brij Sadanah lying in a pool of his own blood even made it to the front page of The Times of India, sending shock waves throughout the nation. How could a man, in his senses, take a gun and do this? The tragedy's only survivor, Kamal Sadanah, led a Bruce Wayne-style existence in his bungalow for the most of the 1990s, reclusive, trying to grips with this nightmare. At the turn of the millennium he found love and started a family. He also tore down his bungalow and paved the way for a high-rise. "Dad always had a Smith&Wesson, but he also had a troublesome habit with it. Once during an argument with my mother, he had shot a round, albeit in the air. My mother, since she was close to Nargis, used her political clout to get the gun confiscated. However, at the peak of the Khalistan crisis, my father citing extortion threats from terrorists, go the gun back," said Kamal Sadanah in an interview to Mumbai Mirror when recounting the horror. It was an oversight that cost the police and the Sadanahs dearly. For on October 21, Mrs and Mrs Sadanah had a bitter fight and…
2.       In Cold Blood: The Murder of Priya Rajvansh

Priya Rajvansh

Her unconventional looks in some daring roles gave her a cult following. Her gruesome murder on March 27, 2000, though brought back into focus how land in maximum city is indeed a heavily-priced commodity. Enough to kill for? Apparently. Her step sons, in the wake of their father's death, producer Chetan Anand, were not too happy to see Priya Rajvansh visit their bungalow. Fearing that she might partly inherit the property, they bribed the servants to strangle her. At first sight, the police assumed that it was a case of suicide. However, when the post-mortem revealed strangulation marks on Rajvansh's neck, the police began a thorough investigation. Through this, a few handwritten letters by the actress were discovered, in which she began writing about a strange sense of anxiety she felt. As though there were a danger to her life. In the case that followed, Ketan Anand and Vivek Anand were found guilty of commissioning her murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.The incident made national news because Chetan Anand was a respected name in film circles: he had bagged the Palme D'Or at the first ever Cannes festival in 1946 for his film Neecha Nagar.
 
3.    Dangerous Liaisons: the Neeraj Grover-Maria Susairaj case
MariaIn May 2008, television executive Neeraj Grover went missing. His missing complaint was filed by none other than his girlfriend Maria Susairaj. Then a few days down the line, the national dailies went in a tizzy about a love triangle gone horribly wrong. Maria Susairaj, a Kannada actress who was making a stab at Bollywood stardom met Neeraj Grover, who was helping her find a toehold in tinsel town. On the night of May 6, 2008, when her lover Emile called up from Kochi, he heard a male voice in the background. He did not like this. It was something that aroused his suspicion, enough to make him take a flight to Mumbai the next morning. He arrived at Maria's door without informing her, stormed into her bedroom, only to find Grover naked. Enraged, he stabbed Neeraj, who died on the spot. Then, Maria and he brought shopping bags, suitcases, knives. They dismembered his body, stuffed it into the bags they'd bought and dumped it on the outskirts of Mumbai. 

The body in the suitcase has in fact has become a motif for murders in tinsel town; the recent murder cases of Nepalese actress Meenakshi Thapa and lyricist-cum-bookie Karan Kumar Kakkad also involved bodies being hacked and then carried around in a suitcase. It's straight out of a Dario Argento flick.  Actually, correct that - it's straight out of reality in Mumbai.