“I want to meet Dawood Ibrahim,” says filmmaker Shadab Siddiqui

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In an open letter published online, filmmaker Shadab Siddiqui has called himself a fan and he wish to meet the underworld Don Dawood Ibrahim to know his better side.
Director Shadab Siddiqui, who has directed a number of short films in the past, including Where is Najeeb (2017), Love in Slum (2016), etc.

Dear one and all,

Of late, I had been thinking about the iconic people I admire and look up to. I was reviving the fan in me and listing down the ones I consider heroes and who’d I like to have a real conversation with.

That’s when I realised there are two types of fans in this world – type A who aspire to be like the one they follow and love so much and type B fans are just fans who are honest admirers and appreciate their hero’s journey without any kind of idolisation. I am type B kind of a fan when it comes to Dawood Ibrahim. Yes, read it twice. I am a big fan of this man.

I strongly believe that each one of us has good and bad sides both. If there are moments we are terrible human beings, there are times we do good out of sheer goodness in us. I feel Dawood Ibrahim too has a better side to him that no one cares to talk about. Some readers may bring my religion into the picture and associate my fandom with being Muslim. But, I have questions for people who think this way. My questions to those people are – Doesn’t Salman Khan have two strong sides to him? Do his fans give up on him? Are all his fans and supporters Muslims? And would these factors make Salman Khan any less of a superstar? Answer all the above questions in your head before you continue to read this letter.

In my opinion, Dawood Ibrahim has been greatly misrepresented by the media just like Salman Khan but in a different capacity altogether. There has been so much said, so much written and so much speculated about Dawood Ibrahim without any legitimate reasons to back and support the reports. To me, Dawood Ibrahim seems like a man trapped in his own doings and entangled in the evils of “Rajneeti.”

The media is still using Dawood Ibrahim’s year’s old pictures in their publication while claiming news about him to be the most recent update about his activities. Who knows the truth! What if his identity is more of a scapegoat and not the butcher himself?

For all we know, the supervillain we have created out of this man is all hoax. Maybe the terror around his name is something that the politicians use to exploit the people’s minds.

I am a fan and I wish to meet him. No, I don’t want to be like him, neither do I idol worship this infamous don. I am curious about his existence, his truth and his reality. What’s he? – a real bad man, a good person gone sour or a man enmeshed in the evils of Rajneeti and fate.

The media has no real picture of Dawood Ibrahim. It has no legit information about the don it so magnanimously decries. But, the media still continues to portray this character in the most negative form.

If you’re a real fan, your hero should intrigue you and I am genuinely piqued to know ‘who is the real Dawood Ibrahim behind this mystery man?’ Aren’t you?

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