Gulshan Kumar

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Gulshan Kumar (?– August 12, 1997) was a wealthy Indian Bollywood movie producer. He is known for producing the T-Series of Indian films.

Kumar was the son of a fruit juice seller in Darya Ganj market in Delhi.

He founded Super Cassette Industries, a small videocassette pirating operation that soon grew to be a giant. He later started a music production company in Noida, near Delhi. Kumar is credited by some with starting the practice of exercising a loophole in Indian copyright law, creating cover versions of popular songs. In late 70’s he was determined to prove that all reputed music companies charge exorbitantly high price with inadequate quality for audio-tapes. He brought highly economical music cassettes with adequate quality that common man could afford. He imported for quality music when his business grew. He introduced immense young talent to the music world, like Sonu Nigam, Anuradha Paudwal, and Kumar Sanu to just name a few who went on to become successful singers. Earlier, the Indian music industry was controlled by a few high-profiled singers, which discouraged new talent. He opened the entertainment industry that a layman felt encouraged to compete and that trend continues with the growth of Indian economy.

Kumar worked to accomplish his endeavors for community service. He established a bhandara (serving free home style food round the clock) to pilgrims hiking to one of the revered Hindu shrine of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi. Gulshan became an icon for a Hindu businessmen involved with sharing his wealth with community. Gulshan introduced music cassettes at highly subsidized prices which promoted religion among fellow Hindus. Gulshan produced films and TV series which covered various parts of Hindu mythology introduced new actors, singers, music directors and many more.

Kumar was the highest tax payer in India in financial year 1992-1993.

As a film producer, he became involved with the Indian Mafia ( Also known as the Mumbai Underworld ), a fixture in the financing of Bollywood films. The financing from underworld is very common in Bollywood which has brought crime to world's biggest movie capital. Various other stars have suffered from the same.

[edit] Murder

On August 12, 1997, Gulshan Kumar was shot dead by unknown assassins of the Dawood Ibrahim/Abu Salem gang, one of the many gangs collectively known as the Mumbai Underworld, outside the Jeeteswar Mahadev Mandir Hindu temple in the Juhu suburb of Mumbai. Nadeem, of the music duo Nadeem Shravan, was accused by the Bombay police for having paid the gang for the murder. His death came as a big shock to the Hindi film world.

On January 9, 2001, Abdul Rauf (known as "Raja"), a member of the Dawood Ibrahim/Abu Salem gang, confessed to having killed Gulshan Kumar.

On April 29, 2002, Rauf was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Mumbai court. Sessions Judge M L Tahilyani stated that he was not imposing the death penalty on Rauf because the prosecution had failed to prove that Rauf was a contract killer. However his murder proved one of the key factors for the seperatin of key dons Dawood Ibrahim and Abu Salem.