Few things excited Sanjay Gupta as much as the prospect of helming a riveting crime thriller. And the filmmaker had zeroed in on one such subject before his sudden death on October 30. mid-day has learnt that he was developing the screen adaptation of the true crime thriller, CIU: Criminals In Uniform, written by investigative journalists Dr Sanjay Singh and Rakesh Trivedi. Gupta, who would have made his web series debut with it, was planning it as an eight-part series.

Speaking to mid-day, Singh revealed that the filmmaker had approached Naseeruddin Shah, Anil Kapoor, Akshaye Khanna, and Dia Mirza for the series.

“Sanjay Gupta held several meetings with us and had prepared an elaborate pitch deck. He was in discussions with Anil Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Akshaye Khanna, Emraan Hashmi, Atul Kulkarni, Mahesh Manjrekar, and Ronit Bose Roy. His ambition was to create one of India’s most star-studded web series.”

Inspired by the 2021 Antilia bomb scare, CIU: Criminals In Uniform is a fictionalized telling of how the controversial head of Mumbai Police’s Crime Investigation Unit leads the probe after explosives are found in a vehicle parked outside the house of a wealthy business tycoon.

Singh added, “Sanjay believed the book had potential for a gripping web series. He understood the sensitivity of the subject.”

Gupta’s 32-year career was built on stylized crime thrillers and action dramas like Kaante (2002), Zinda (2006), Shootout At Wadala (2013), and Kaabil (2017). What distinguished him from other filmmakers, according to Singh, was that his stories were never only about the crime. “It was about the people, circumstances, hidden truths, and the larger story that the public had never been told.”

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Anil Kapoor as Commissioner, Mumbai Police; Naseeruddin Shah as a bureaucrat; Akshaye Khanna as Assistant Commissioner of Police; Emraan Hashmi as a senior inspector

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Sanjay Singh revealed that Sanjay Gupta was keen on revisiting the 1978 Ranga-Billa case, despite Prime Video’s ‘Raakh’ having recently explored the story.

He shared, “I’ve written a book on Ranga and Billa, and Sanjay was interested in bringing their story to the screen. When ‘Raakh’ came out, Sanjay felt that the makers had missed an opportunity to explore a much more complex crime story. He believed there was still tremendous potential to make a powerful and factually accurate web series on them”

Actor Shah Rukh Khan and his family have maintained a stoic silence over his son Aryan Khan’s arrest in connection with a drug case last year. However, NCB (Narcotics Control Bureau) deputy director (operations) Sanjay Singh, who headed the Special Investigations Team (SIT), spoke about the father’s condition at that time.

Speaking with India Today, Singh revealed Shah Rukh met him and raised concerns about Aryan’s physical and mental well-being when Aryan was in custody. Sanjay said that in one of their conversations, a teary-eyed Shah Rukh told Singh: “We have been painted as some kind of big criminals or monsters who are out to destroy society and we find going to work tough every day.”

Singh also added how Aryan told him that the agency was treating him like an “international drug trafficker”. As per Singh, Aryan said to him, “Sir, you have painted me as an international drug trafficker, that I finance drug trafficking — aren’t these charges absurd? They did not find any drugs on my person that day and yet they arrested me.”

Singh said that Aryan even asked if he deserved being in prison for so long when no evidence was found on him. “Sir, you have done me great wrong and ruined my reputation. Why did I have to spend so many weeks in jail — did I really deserve it?” Aryan asked him, Singh said.

Mumbai: The Narcotics Control Bureau’s special investigation team (SIT), which had taken up six cases for further investigations, will now focus on the cruise drug bust case involving Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan, NCP minister Nawab Malik’s son-in-law Sameer Khan case and actor Armaan Kohli’s case.

The SIT that was formed after a controversy erupted over allegations of a payoff to an NCB official in the cruise drug bust case and images of witnesses accompanying the accused to the NCB’s office with Aryan Khan, and selfies with him emerged.

Nawab Malik had alleged that the case was fabricated. NCB had then said Malik was trying to settle scores after his son-in-law was booked in a narcotics case.

The SIT had taken over six cases but the priority will be to broaden the probe into these three cases, according to deputy director of NCB Sanjay Singh.

He told TOI, “Due to shortage of manpower we have now taken up only three cases to relook at investigations carried out and later on we will take up the other three.”'

The three other cases pertain to the arrest of accused from Mumbra, Jogeshwari and Dongri for dealing in contraband.