In Sopore,Sahil was Sajad who ‘flaunted’ his Bollywood links

His school friends remember him as a jolly boy who would always “brag” about his connections in Bollywood. “He would refer to actors and actresses as ‘didi’,‘bhaiya’ and ‘uncles’ — Juhi (Chawla) didi,Govinda uncle… He would show us his photographs with Govinda and talk about his interaction with actors,” says one of his school friends,Shafat Ahmad.

Sajad was born in a lower-middle class family. His father Peer Ghulam Mohammad was the president of a local transport union and also a dedicated worker of the Congress party in Sopore. Mohammad had connections with the Congress high command both in the state and the Centre. In 1964,when Indira Gandhi visited Sopore,she had gone to Mohammad’s small mud-and-brick house for tea.

Sajad studied in Class X from Sainik School,Manasbal,after which he took admission in the higher secondary school in Sopore. “He didn’t like his name Sajad and would tell us to call him Sajid,instead,” says Ahmad.

“Sajad suddenly went missing after failing to clear his Class XII in 1997. Later,we came to know that he had left for Mumbai. I saw him three years later when he had come to Kashmir with a Bollywood director,” he adds.

In Mumbai,Sajad had started a career in modelling.

Ever since he moved to Mumbai,his friends had no idea about what he was doing. But when he returned a few years later,he was an accomplished “businessman”. Not wishing to be named,a relative of Sajad said the latter had told him that he was into diamond business,shuttling between Dubai,South Africa and India.

His friends and relatives know now that Sajad had become Sahil in Mumbai,but none of them know when and how he became a businessman.