Bollywood dolls or don's molls?

Mumbai: The underworld has had a history of relationships with Bollywood?business and otherwise.

Abu Salem and former actress Monica Bedi are just one among a list of connections that tie underworld dons to showbiz starlets.

Actress Mandakini who shot to fame in Raj Kapoor's Ram Teri Ganga Maili in 1985, was linked to Dawood Ibrahim. She was reported to have moved to Dubai and married Dawood in the early 90s, and had a child from him.

But the actress has always refused to speak on the issue. A few years ago, Mandakini returned to Mumbai and tried unsuccessfully to pursue a career as a singer.

Her debut pop album No Vacany sank without a trace. The actress shifted base to Bangalore where she is currently settled with her son.

Film actress Naghma who made her debut opposite Salman Khan in Baaghi in 1990, has also been linked to Dawood Ibrahim.

When her movie career began sinking in the late nineties, the actress vanished from Mumbai, and the gossip mills insisted she had shifted base to Dubai where she is rumoured to have found favour with the Don.

Naghma returned to Mumbai a few years later and has done bit roles in films like Chal Mere Bhai. Currently she is starring in Bhojpuri films.

Another actress whose name has repeatedly come up in connection with her alleged links with the underworld is Bollywood's former sex-siren Mamta Kulkarni who starred in such hit films as Karan Arjun, and Sabse Bada Khiladi.

Mamta is believed to have used her alleged contacts with the underworld to get herself reinstated in film-maker Rajkumar Santoshi's China Gate, after the director threw her out of the film following a fall-out between the two.

In the year 1997 producer director Rajiv Rai escaped a murder attempt allegedly financed by Abu Salem. Not ironically his film Pyar Ishq Aur Mohabbat which released later in 2001 starred actress Monica Bedi, Salem's companion who has now been extradited to Mumbai from Portugal with the underworld don.

The financial alliance between Bollywood and the mafia dates back to Haji Mastan's time and probably has it's roots in matters beyond business.

The late crime lord is reportedly to have had a relationship with an aspiring starlet Sona, which in turn led him to produce several films featuring her.