Celebrity talent manager sends suicide note to newspaper; cops, who were alerted, catch him in Vashi
Vinay Dalvi (MUMBAI MIRROR; October 20, 2018)

The founder of one of India’s biggest talent management agencies was rescued by police in Vashi at midnight on Thursday, about an hour after he sent a note to the Times of India, in which he threatened to commit suicide.

Anirban Das Blah, who heads Kwan Entertainment, was on Tuesday accused by four women of sexual harassment, following which he was asked by the firm’s partners to step down from his position of managing director in the company. The accusers, who spoke to Mid-Day, did not reveal their identity.

In his mail to the Times of India, Blah, 40, wrote: “Without trying to justify any of my actions, I just want to say that I have tried to be the best person I can be. I didn’t have the strength to cope with what happened to me as a child in a healthy way. I was never able to separate sex from power, to make it a part of love, and somewhere along the way, one part of me turned into a monster… You will find my body somewhere near Vashi creek. My licence will be with me as identification plus my tattoo. I am wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt. The monster inside me has won against the other part of me for too long, it’s time to kill it once and for all.”

According to the police, Blah’s note dropped into the inbox of a Times of India staffer at 11.07pm. The staffer immediately alerted Deven Bharti, joint commissioner of police, who relayed the message to Navi Mumbai police commissioner, Sanjay Kumar.

Kumar said the Navi Mumbai police swung into action immediately, and alerted its traffic arm. “The DCP Traffic was informed, and several policemen, who were in civvies, were despatched to the old bridge at Vashi,” said Kumar.

At about 12.05am, the police said that they spotted a man walking towards the bridge. “He had probably got to the bridge in an Uber and was walking slowly towards it. As we got closer to him, we surrounded and restrained him,” said Satish Gaikwad, a senior inspector of police with the Vashi Traffic Division. Gaikwad said he readily identified himself as Anirban Blah.

Gaikwad said that Blah told them that he resided at Eden Roc condominium at Union Park, in Khar. Blah claimed that the accusations had taken a toll on his mental health, and that he had decided to end his life.

A police officer who did not want to be identified told Mirror that he wasn’t sure why Blah had to send an email to a newspaper an hour before he reached Vashi. “Also, certain aspects, such as the manner in which he went about it, struck us as very odd,” said the officer. The police handed Blah over to his relatives and friends, who had, by then, been informed about the incident.

Following the accusations and Blah’s stepping down, a swarm of rumours engulfed the company. Several anonymous emails and messages claimed that Blah’s stepping down was an eyewash and that several of its employees were informed at a town hall that Blah was still part of the agency and warned to stay quiet about it.

In an interview to entertainment website Spotboye, Blah’s brother Indranil clarified that Blah had indeed stepped down and that his shares in the company were being bought by the other partners. “On Wednesday, he was asked to step aside. On Thursday, we asked him to send in his resignation,” said Indranil, who is on the board of directors of Kwan.

Blah started Kwan in 2009, and today the company, which operates in several verticals in entertainment and sports, reportedly does business worth more than Rs 3,000 crore annually. Kwan’s clients include actors Deepika Padukone, Hrithik Roshan, Shraddha Kapoor, and, among others, cricketer Shikhar Dhawan.

Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; June 1, 2017)

On Wednesday, Shah Rukh Khan’s team began receiving frantic calls from the media, police personnel, fans and friends, enquiring about his whereabouts. A European news network, El Pais TV, had carried a ‘breaking news’ story which said, “Tributes have poured in for Indian film actor, producer and television presenter Shah Rukh Khan after he was killed along with seven others when a private jet he was travelling in crashed. It is believed to have been caused by turbulent weather. He was travelling in a Gulfstream G550 jet with his personal assistant and others to Paris for a meeting. The death of Shah Rukh Khan has stunned the Indian diaspora worldwide.”

The news made Joint Commissioner of Mumbai Police, Deven Bharti, spring into action, as he contacted SRK’s management and was informed that the reports were untrue and that the 51-year-old actor was in Mumbai, filming, and had not been to France or anywhere near a plane recently. Meanwhile, a few policemen arrived at SRK’s Bandra home, Mannat. “This isn’t the first time that Shah Rukh Khan has been at the receiving end of a death hoax. But this time, the gravity of the situation was worse since the news made it to a WhatsApp group of Mumbai’s top cops. It had already been picked up by legitimate French and Indian websites. SRK’s team had to field calls all day,” a source told Mirror.

Writer-filmmaker Rob Cain, who has written about several SRK films, specially those that have released in China, used a Mark Twain quip to comment on the incident, “The reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated,” he said.

Over the past decade, several Bollywood celebrities have been killed off by the internet. Last year, Rishi Kapoor had to deny rumours of his uncle Shashi Kapoor’s demise, while Ayushmann Khurrana had to write a note to confirm that he had not “passed away in a skiing accident in Switzerland” and Honey Singh had to share a selfie to prove that he was not “found dead on his hospital bed”. In February, Farida Jalal was a victim of another social media hoax, as was Aishwarya Rai, who was reported to have died in a car accident in 2006 and had recently “tried to commit suicide by overdosing on tranquilizers”. Dilip Kumar’s wife Saira Banu has had to reply to queries regarding his death for the last four years, each time sharing pictures of him recuperating at home or in the hospital.