Spurned actress 'hired hitman to kill director'

Published on Thursday 15 September 2005 01:35

A BOLLYWOOD actress has been charged with hiring a contract killer to murder a film director who refused to give her a part.

Preeti Jain, 30, is alleged to have paid an underworld assassin to kill Madhur Bhandarkar after he reneged on promises to cast her in his films.

The alleged conspiracy has all the ingredients of one of Bhandarkar's darkest Bollywood thrillers and has gripped the imagination of the Indian public.

The media have portrayed Preeti as the archetypal woman scorned who will stop at nothing to get revenge. She and the alleged assassin, to whom she is said to have paid 30,000 rupees (375), were arrested in Mumbai last month. This week she was taken to Bangalore to undergo a series of lie detector tests.

The alleged murder plot is the latest twist in a bitter and long-running real-life saga involving the would-be actress and the film-maker.

Preeti, who has sought fame and fortune since her teens, moved to Mumbai from Gujarat in 1999 in the hope of finding stardom. She was doing small-time modelling assignments when she met Bhandarkar while he was casting for his second film.

She first hit the headlines about a year ago when she accused him of raping her several times over a five-year period. Her accusations came after the director allegedly went back on promises to give her the acting break she so desperately craved.

High Court judges eventually threw out the allegations and questioned Preeti's credibility.

The case, however, went on to inspire a Bollywood movie in which a girl called Madhubala (allegedly based on Preeti) longs to be a famous actress. She eventually achieves her goal, but only after going down the casting-couch route.

The producer of Madhubala, Rajoo Kariya, said Preeti Jain was "a nice girl who really struggled to make it in Bollywood. She's probably frustrated because nothing has come out of her struggle".

To date, Preeti has had only one role - in a film that has yet to be released. She is allegedly known in Bollywood as a publicity seeker, but neighbours in the plush Bombay suburb where she lives describe her as an introvert who rarely speaks to anyone, travels in an auto-rickshaw and makes calls from public phone boxes.

Bhandarkar, meanwhile, is one of Bollywood's more esteemed directors. His latest film, Page 3, is about a journalist who attends a celebrity party for the society page of her newspaper.

Speaking of the alleged plot to kill him, he said: "I was on my way to my office when I started getting calls. I didn't know what to say or do. I was in complete shock. After all, these things don't happen in real life, do they?

"I don't know what Preeti's problem is. I've never interacted with her beyond the usual pleasantries. She used to come to my office and ask for work. That's the extent of my so-called relationship with Preeti Jain."