O’Romeo real life story: Sapna sought Hussain Ustara to kill Dawood Ibrahim; she cut off ties when he touched her inappropriately

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Hussain Ustara taught Sapna about guns, martial arts

When she first approached Ustara, Ashraf asked him for firing lessons, and for days on end, she would show up at his house for her lesson. When she was proving to be a good student, she wondered if she should leave for Dubai to kill Dawood but Ustara stopped her because he knew that this wouldn’t be as easy as she thought it to be. He also enrolled her in martial arts classes so she could fight when needed. Amidst all of this, Ustara started to fall in love with her, but he was yet to tell her what he actually did for a living.

Ustara primarily worked as an informer to the cops and had never told Ashraf about this, until now. He was a gangster and his network got him relevant scoop about Dawood’s businesses. “Ashraf, I have for a long time been working as an informer only to get at Dawood. My networks feed me with information about his new businesses. I pass this on to the cops. The cops, if they succeed in doing something about it, give me a small percentage of the profits,” he told her.

Ashraf renamed herself Sapna, became known as Sapna didi

Ashraf, in the meanwhile, was trying to gather support from other local dons who, she knew, would be against Dawood. When she met gangster-turned-politician Arun Gawli, she decided that she had to change her name as she believe that “Hindu gangsters don’t trust Muslim women easily. I need to have a name that sounds more Hindu.” She landed on Sapna as it was her dream to kill Dawood. “It is my dream to kill Dawood. It is the only thing I think about night and day. It’s my sapna. I think I’ll call myself Sapna, dream and Sapna, after all, is a name acceptable to both Hindus and Muslims,” she said.

Hussain Ustara still saw Sapna as a naive woman with impossible dreams. But she had progressed to being a local gangster with a network of informers. Hussain had made her believe that she could hurt Dawood by hurting his businesses, so she made it her mission to report every one of his local businesses. “She collected details about the dance bars and gambling dens in the city, and the moment she realised that they were in some way or the other connected to the underworld or Dawood, she would tip off Crime Branch officers,” Ustara recalled.

Triptii Dimri in O’Romeo.

How Hussain Ustara got his name

Sapna was getting more independent, and in this process, she had been attacked twice. While she was trying her best to hurt Dawood’s businesses, it wasn’t making much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, so she and Ustara decided to travel to Kathmandu as Dawood’s business of arms and fake currency used Nepal as a channel.

It was here that Sapna actually paid attention to Hussain as, after knowing for a long time, she finally asked him why he was called Ustara. He shared that at 15, he was a pickpocket and every day, he had to submit his loot to the ring leader. One day, Hussain had a huge loot and he tried to hide it but when the ringleader got to know, he beat him up. “When I realised that things were going out of control, and I had no means to escape. I removed my razor from inside my pocket and attacked the ringleader. I managed to inflict a wound that began at his neck and ran right to his crotch. He was bleeding a lot and I managed to get away. He was taken to a hospital and the doctor there made a strange remark. He said that the person who had cut him had done so with surgical precision. And soon, before I could realise it, the name Ustara got stuck to my name. From then on people started fearing me, all because of that small weapon,” he shared. The duo fell into some twisted filmy gang encounters during their trip to Nepal and it is here that the two actually confessed that they cared for each other.

Shahid Kapoor in O’Romeo.

Sapna cut off ties with Ustara when he touched her without consent

But, Sapna and Hussain, who were both gangsters, hunting for Dawood, ultimately fell apart when Hussain tried to touch a vulnerable Sapna without her consent. In December 1991, Sapna stormed inside Hussian’s house as she was being followed by some goons. She had fought off a few but was now actually scared for her life, and believed that Ustara would save her. However, after comforting her initially, he tried something inappropriate with her, that shook her to her core.

When Sapna called him out, he made an excuse that he “lost control” but Sapna was furious. As she continued to berate him for his actions, he finally showed his true colours. “All these years, it was I who helped you become somebody. And I have been meaning to tell you what you are actually. You are just a shrewd, scheming b**ch who…” he said, and she slapped him. She walked away from him, and never saw him again.

Sapna could not fulfill her dream of killing Dawood. She once made an elaborate plan of hiring a few men who would kill him during an India-Pakistan match in Sharjah on live television. Dawood’s men learnt of this plan, and they got her killed in 1994. Ustara too, died a few years later, in 1998.