Actor Sanjay Dutt is winning hearts with his commanding turn as the late Pakistani police officer Chaudhary Aslam in Aditya Dhar’s blockbuster franchise Dhurandhar.
While audiences are applauding his intense portrayal, here’s an interesting real-life twist – the police officer he essays on screen was, in fact, an ardent fan of the Bollywood star himself.
The spy thriller takes inspiration from real-life events to craft a semi-fictionalised narrative of India’s war against terror in Pakistan, with a sharp focus on the criminal networks operating in Karachi’s Lyari.
The film brings to the screen several characters rooted in reality, including the late Karachi SP Chaudhary Aslam Khan, portrayed by Sanjay Dutt.
It has now come to light that the police officer was a fan of Sanjay Dutt, with those close to him even affectionately nicknaming him “baba cop” – a nod to the actor’s iconic persona.
The real-life connection between Sanjay and Chaudhary Aslam was revealed by Anirudhya Mitra, an ex- journalist with decades of experience researching the ISI, the Pakistan underworld, in the recent episode of The Ranveer Show.
Talking about the late police officer, Anirudhya said, “Log bolte has he was a Taliban hunter.. Ek naam tha yaaron ka yaar… ek naam tha baba cop… Baba cop kyun naam tha kyunki woh Sanjay Dutt ke bahut bade fan the Khalnayak dekhne ke baad, which is an irony (People used to say he was a Taliban hunter… he had many names… He was known as a friend of friends. One name that stood out was ‘Baba Cop’. He was called Baba Cop because he was a huge fan of Sanjay Dutt after watching Khalnayak – which is an irony).”
Later in the episode, Anirudhya asserted that Sanjay was an apt choice to portray his character in the Bollywood film.
He also revealed that before Dhurandhar, a life based on life was made in Pakistan too.
Who was Chaudhary Aslam?
Born in 1963, Chaudhary Aslam joined the Sind Police in the 80s as an ASI and worked in several towns across the Pakistani province.
In the 2000s, he was appointed to lead the Lyari Task Force in the government’s crackdown on the gangs in the Karachi township.
He is credited with eliminating several major gangsters from the region.
After surviving an attack from the Taliban in 2011, he was assassinated in 2014 by the TTP, the Taliban’s Pakistani faction.
Sanjay Dutt plays him in Dhurandhar, a film based on Operation Lyari and the Indian intelligence’s role in dismantling the terror network there.
