Aparita

The Globe and Mail, [10/08/2002]

 

Amid public outcry, India’s Tom Cruise is charged with running over homeless

 

Special to the Globe and Mail

NEW DELHI — Bare chested, with muscles rippling, Indian film superstar Salman Khan rarely met an opponent he couldn’t crush, as he single-handedly meted out justice to the bad guys of Bollywood.

But Mr. Khan, who has been called the Tom Cruise of India because of his looks and box-office drawing power, may have met his match in real life — in the form of public outrage that accomplished what no police officer or politician was prepared to do.

After days of front-page stories in the Indian media, and a public-interest lawsuit, the actor surrendered to police yesterday and was charged with culpable homicide for allegedly crushing a group of homeless people while driving drunk in Bombay.

According to the charges, Mr. Khan rammed a Toyota Land Cruiser onto a sidewalk in Bandra, a Bombay suburb, where a group of workers were sleeping outside a bakery. One person died and three were hospitalized with serious injuries in the Sept. 27 incident.

Mr. Khan, who was also charged with impaired driving and failure to have a valid driver’s licence, faces up to 10 years in jail.

But the very fact that he was charged has become a sensation in India, where the rich and famous often get preferential treatment from police and break the law with impunity.

The actor arrived at a Bombay police station yesterday afternoon, accompanied by his father Salim Khan, a well-known screenwriter in Bollywood — the booming film industry named for its centre in Bombay — and was remanded in custody until Thursday.

His case first made headlines last week when Bombay police charged him with the minor offence of rash and negligent driving, and released him on bail of 950 rupees, or $30. At the time, he had turned himself over to police several hours after the accident. A blood alcohol test was not conducted.

Although Mr. Khan originally denied driving the vehicle, his police bodyguard later signed a written statement stating the star was at the wheel. Then, last Friday, Mr. Khan was ordered to surrender his passport in a sign that authorities were considering more serious charges.

But it was public action that appeared to overtake the slow police investigation.
Before Mr. Khan surrendered a second time, a city court yesterday accepted a public-interest petition, filed by two social activists and a local journalist, demanding police charge him with culpable homicide, a non-bailable offence.

The court also ordered the star to pay compensation of one million rupees, or $32,000, to the family of the man killed in the accident, as well as 300,000 rupees to one person seriously injured and 150,000 rupees to two who received less serious injuries.

Public concern over drunk driving has been growing for years in India’s main cities, where a surge in wealth and car traffic has produced a string of horrible accidents.

In 1993, Bollywood actor Puru Rajkumar, son of the legendary actor Rajkumar, ran down four people, killing three of them. A Bombay court ordered him to pay 25,000 rupees as compensation for each of the three killed and 5,000 rupees for the one injured.

In July of 1999, Bollywood actor Aditya Panscholi ran down two patrolling policeman and got off with bail of 950 rupees.

This is not Mr. Khan’s first brush with the law. The 37-year-old actor, who first captured attention in the late 1980s for his boyish good looks, was assigned a bodyguard two months ago after he reportedly received extortion threats from the Bombay underworld, which has strong links with the film industry.

Mr. Khan starred in some of India’s biggest grossing films but has failed to deliver a hit in recent years. He made headlines last month when he disrupted a film set where his ex-girlfriend, Aishwarya Rai, a former Miss World, was working.

Two years ago he was charged along with three other Indian celebrities for allegedly killing two black bucks, an endangered animal covered under the Indian Wildlife Protection Act. A verdict has yet to be reached on the charge, which carries a prison term of up to seven years.

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