Subhash K Jha (DNA; March 2, 2016)
In Rahul Dhalokia’s Raees, Shah Rukh Khan plays a character loosely based on Abdul Latif, an alleged gangster who ran the illicit liquor business in Gujarat during the peak of Prohibition in the 1990s. The film is now in legal trouble.
Latif had over 40 murder cases filed against him. However, now, Latif’s son Mustak Ahmed Abdul Latif Shaikh has sent legal notices to nine prominent people involved with the making of the film Raees, including SRK, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, producer Ritesh Sidhwani and director Rahul Dholakia, asking how or why a film on his father’s life is being made.
The legal notice cease-and-desist notice advises the team “from screening, promoting, releasing, publicising, advertising and exploiting the Hindi film titled Raees.”
It goes on to say, Mustak’s father was “a famous businessman with deep roots in society.” In other words, Raees is likely to show him in an unfavourable light and must therefore explain itself to the son of the man on whose life the film is based. Even the set representing Abdul’s house that was erected in Film City was supposedly a replica of the Shaikhs’ residence.