The night before a movie’s release should be all about celebration for the makers and the team. But Sikandar’s leading man Salman Khan and producer Sajid Nadiadwala spent Saturday night and the early hours of March 30 scrambling to contain an online leak of their film. Hours before A R Murugadoss’ directorial venture hit the theatres on March 30 morning, the film’s high-definition (HD) version made its way to X. To combat the leak, Nadiadwala’s production house, Khan’s fan clubs and Mumbai Police’s cyber department worked together and pulled down over 3000 links.

Ravi Desai, who heads the Salman Khan Fan Club on X, reveals that a sign was there in the days leading up to the release. “On March 26, a handle had posted an unseen image from the film and claimed that they will release the film’s prints. Later, that account vanished. On Saturday at 11.30 pm, a print was released from another X handle. It was first available on HDM [a website for torrent downloads], and from there, it came to X. By 12 am, it was everywhere,” he recalls.

Desai and many other fans promptly alerted Salman Khan Films (SKF) at midnight about the development. In the next half-an-hour, SKF, Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment, and the anti-piracy agency, FX Securities, sprung into action. Desai says together, they worked with the Cyber Wing of Mumbai Police that combed X and Telegram to find the accounts.

“Within hours, we received thousands of reports from fans who helped us track down many accounts. Over 3000 links have been pulled down so far,” says Desai, adding, “We feel the leak happened at the post-production end.”

Piracy has become a rampant issue in the film industry, with many movies, including the recent L2 Empuraan and Game Changer, leaked online. It’s too early to deduce whether the box-office collection of Sikandar—that marks Khan’s return to the big screen over a year after Tiger 3 (2023) and also stars Rashmika Mandanna—has been adversely affected by the leak. Nadiadwala’s production house has reported over 1000 accounts to the authorities.

A source from the production team says, “Salman sir and Sajid sir have been in constant touch with the FX cyber security team, legal advisors, and social media platforms. The original source of the leak remains unidentified. The authorities are tracking the IP addresses linked to the pirated version’s dissemination. There will be consequences for those involved.”