Sana Khan, Salman Khan’s leading lady in his next film ‘Mental’, is on the run after being booked by the Navi Mumbai police for trying to kidnap a 15-year-old girl who had rebuffed her cousin Naved Khan’s advances. While Naved and his two friends – Kshitij Gopinath Dubey and Vismit Vilas Ambre – were arrested, Sana has gone into hiding, disrupting Mental’s shooting schedule. A 17-year old boy, who was with Sana, Naved and their friends when they tried to kidnap the girl, has been booked under the Juvenile Act.
Sana, who was Salman’s favourite in Bigg Boss’s 6th edition, has not reported on Mental’s sets since April 30, when the mother of the minor she had attempted to abduct filed a complaint against her at the Turbhe police station. The complaint says that Sana had tried to kidnap the girl when she was returning from her class X tuitions. Sana has featured in three TV commercials with Salman. She has also appeared in advertisements with Akshay Kumar and Hrithik Roshan. While she did grab some attention when she was in the Bigg Boss house, Mental is Sana’s big break.
In March 2007, Sana’s TV commercial for a men’s underwear brand had created a huge controversy and the advertisement was banned by the Indian government on the grounds of obscenity. However, the company re-hired Sana, shot a sequel to that commercial with a different theme, and released it on TV in February 2008.
A production assistant, who deals with cast and crew of Mental, said the team has no information about Sana going underground. “Our next shoot is scheduled early next week in Lavasa. If what you are telling me is true, then we are in big trouble,” she said. Mental’s producer Sohail Khan remained unavailable for comment despite repeated calls.
Senior Police Inspector Rajesh Katkar of Turbhe police station said his teams are looking for Sana. “One team had gone to the Oshiwara residence of the accused, but she was not there.” According to the complaint, the minor, who can’t be named, met Naved on Facebook in November last year. They became friends and began hanging out together with a group of mutual friends.
It was all fine till Naved proposed marriage to the girl in May. Though she rejected the proposal, Naved kept pursuing her. He did not give up even after she stopped meeting him and shut her Facebook account. When the girl stayed firm on her decision, Naved began issuing her threats, often invoking Sana and her powerful friends’ names.
On April 30 around 5.30 pm, when the girl was returning home from her tuition in Sanpada, Naved stopped her on the way. He was accompanied by three of his friends and Sana, who was at the wheel of a BMW car. Naved and his friends tried to drag the girl into Sana’s car, but she managed to wriggle out and ran towards her house. When she reached home, Sana, Naved and their friends were already there and were arguing with her mother. Sana accused the girl of robbing her cousin of his peace of mind and threatened to teach her a lesson.
When Sana, Naved and their friends left, the girl’s mother lodged a police complaint and Naved, Kshitij and Vismit were arrested the same evening. They were charged with kidnapping, wrongful restraint, and trespass. While nobody from Sana’s family was available for comment, her spokesman Ismail Sheikh denied Sana is on the run. “How can Sana kidnap anybody? Yes, an FIR has been lodged against her but that’s because she was wrongly accused of forcing a minor girl to marry an 18-year-old boy.” When asked if that 18-year-old boy was Sana’s cousin, Sheikh refused to comment.
