Rakesh Roshan recalls underworld’s gunshot attack after Hrithik Roshan’s Bollywood debut in Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai: 'I refused to give into arm twisting tactics'

The year 2000 was a mix of triumph and terror for the Roshan family. On January 14, Rakesh Roshan’s Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai launched Hrithik Roshan into stardom, marking the young actor as Bollywood’s next big thing. However, the celebrations were short-lived as just a week later, Rakesh Roshan was shot in broad daylight outside his Mumbai office. Despite being struck by two bullets, the director managed to drive himself to the hospital, miraculously surviving the attack.

The shooting was linked to the underworld, which held a significant grip on Bollywood during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Threatening calls to filmmakers and actors were common, and the 1997 assassination of Gulshan Kumar had already exposed the deadly consequences of crossing criminal elements.

In a recent conversation with Bollywood Hungama, Rakesh Roshan revealed that the attack stemmed from his refusal to let Hrithik work on a film financed by the underworld. “I never gave any indication that Hrithik could do a film for them. I kept putting them off saying Hrithik had no dates, which in any case, was the truth. They then asked me to take dates away from other producers and give it to them. This again, I refused to do,” he shared.




Rakesh also spoke about the immense pressure and danger he faced at the time. “Once I had committed my son’s dates elsewhere, I refused to give into arm twisting tactics. I never gave in. With the kind of tension and fear that some of us had to bear, we couldn’t do anything creative, let alone make a film,” he said.



The incident deeply impacted Hrithik Roshan as well. In an interview with Simi Garewal shortly after the attack, Hrithik confessed he contemplated quitting films. He admitted feeling “directly or indirectly responsible” for what had happened to his father.
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