Amjad Khan’s son recalls how producers ran away with Rs 1.25 crore after actor’s death, an underworld gangster offered to compensate them

Late actor Amjad Khan‘s son, Shadaab Khan, opened up about his father’s death and what happened in its aftermath. He said that his father was a large-hearted soul who had loaned out lots of money to producers in the film industry, but they didn’t see a single penny after he died.
In an interview with The Times of India, Shadaab said that his father had a ‘habit of helping people out and letting go of a lot of money’ after lening to ‘sob stories’. He knew that he was being taken for a ride, but didn’t care. In fact, Shadaab said, his father kept all his money with friends, and not at banks. But when he died of a heart attack in 1992, at the age of 51, only ‘a handful’ came forward to repay them.

Shadaab estimated that his father was owed Rs 1.25 crore and that the family was in a mess. Four months after his father’s death, Shadaab said, a gangster from the Middle East called and said that he could pay his mother that amount in three days. But Shadaab’s mother refused, saying that her husband ‘never took favours from the underworld’. Shadaab credited his mother with putting the family back on track after Amjad Khan’s death.
The actor was perhaps best known for playing the villain Gabbar Singh in the iconic film Sholay, which also starred Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Jaya Bachchan and Sanjeev Kumar. Shadaab revealed that he hadn’t kept in touch with Amitabh after his father’s death, but the actor showed up to his book launch event when he texted him out of the blue, asking if he’d be willing to grace the event.
Amitabh also fought for Amjad after the producers and the audience turned on him immediately after Sholay’s release, blaming his booming voice for the film’s lacklustre debut. But just a few days later, the tides turned in favour of the film, and it became one of the biggest hits of all time. Amjad Khan’s performance became iconic.