The drama over Apoorva Lakhia’s biopic Haseena Parkar continues. The film is based on fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s sister Haseena Parkar who ran his empire in Mumbai from 1993 until her death in 2014. Shraddha Kapoor plays the title role. Now, with the arrest on Monday of Dawood’s youngest brother Iqbal Kaskar by the Thane Police’s Anti-Extortion Cell for threatening builders and jewelers into paying extortion money, the focus has also shifted the biopic releasing tomorrow. The police are trying to figure if Dawood has invested in the production of this biopic and if the underworld don has started financing other Bollywood films again.

Senior Police Inspector Pradeep Sharma, a flamboyant former Encounter Specialist of the Mumbai Police on whose career the Bollywood crime film Ab Tak Chappan was reportedly made, led the arrest of Kaskar. It is now being whispered in Bollywood trade circles that Sharma is likely to question Swiss Entertainment, the producers of Haseena Parkar, to find out who are its financers. Kaskar was reportedly arrested when he was watching the biopic. His interrogation has led the police to believe there are at least four under production Bollywood films that could possibly be financed by Dawood. Thane Police Commissioner Parambir Singh said, “The underworld has always invested in Bollywood. Now when Iqbal and his fellows are under arrest the matter will be probed further. We suspect that all their extortion money was invested in films.”

What has raised the police’s antenna is the tipoff they received that the script for Haseena Parkar was narrated in March 2016 to Dawood’s daughters Mahrukh and Mahreen in Dubai. Mahrukh is married to former Pakistan cricket superstar Javed Miandad’s son, Junaid. The police are trying to ascertain who represented the film at this meeting. They have been told its producers and director were there and met Dawood’s daughters. Reportedly, Mahrukh and Mahreen ordered 127 changes to be made to the script and then got involved in styling the biopic so as to give an accurate portrayal of their late ‘Appa Haseena’. Now the police’s focus is on who financed Haseena Parkar. Sources say that Iqbal Kaskar, whose interrogation continues, was involved in raising the finance.