‘Your director talks to much, we’ll bang him’: Dabangg director recalls threatening calls after speaking against Salman Khan’s family in press

Also read – Arbaaz Khan is ‘nikamma’; he’d run away from Dabangg set at first sign of trouble: Anurag Kashyap’s brother unleashes new tirade

When a journalist reached out to Abhinav for a quote, he spoke against the Khans for the first time. This was when discussions for the second instalment had just begun. “I immediately received a call from Arbaaz. He said, ‘Sir, kyun bol rahe ho? Ashwin called me and said, tera director bahut bolta hai, we’ll bang him’.” Abhinav couldn’t recall who Ashwin was, but he said, “Arbaaz bhai, if someone says you aren’t the father of your son Arhaan, won’t you feel offended?” Arbaaz hung up.

Abhinav said that whenever he would counter a news article that projected him in a negative light, he would receive a call from Arbaaz. “They tried to sideline me after the film was made. They didn’t give me proper credit even in the film, you can go and check; Salman’s name comes at the end instead of mine. Arbaaz’s name comes above the title; they even debated over the font size for my credit. There was a conspiracy to sideline me. I was humiliated every day while working on that film. None of them has called me in the last 15 years,” he said, adding that he would’ve liked for the internal conflict to not make its way to the press in the first place.

Dabangg is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, and Abhinav had reiterated his complaints against the Khans in an interview with SCREEN recently. “He (Salman Khan) is the father of the star system in Bollywood. He is from a film family which has been in the industry since 50 years. He continues the process. They are vindictive people. They control the whole process. If you don’t agree with them, they come after you,” he said.