Scamera

THE Hunter becomes the hunted and the hunt begins again. Ruchi is the hunter this season, vowing vengeance on any man who has dared to propo...

THE Hunter becomes the hunted and the hunt begins again. Ruchi is the hunter this season, vowing vengeance on any man who has dared to proposition a woman. She is the 8216;8216;honey pot8217;8217; for all those men who misuse their position to trap young girls with the promise of a good break on television or films. She, of the quivering voice, alternates between playing Menaka and Urvashi, the victim and the tormentor, seducing the man with promises, till his dream explodes in the face of flashbulbs led by a buccaneer called Suhaib Ilyasi.

Ruchi is the woman Suhaib Ilyasi cannot do without.

The new poster-boy of new-age journalism, Ilyasi preys on the conflict between the individual8217;s right to privacy and the public8217;s right to know. Ilyasi dabbles with information with the ease of an entertainer as he sells sex as information.

Watch him leap onto your screens with a war-cry. 8216;8216;Come join me in the war of India fights back,8217;8217; he exhorts. You could be fooled into believing India was at war on India TV. Ilyasi is a showman, masquerading as an investigator, using the might of his voice and the new-found power of the camera to expose8212;the underbelly of anything that catches his attention.

It could be the Mumbai film industry as the two 8216;8216;disgraced men8217;8217; found out much to their chagrin to expose the casting couch or MLAs cavorting with sex workers or saints playing with devotees.

Oh, yes he is sensitive. He will allow the usage of f on screen, but will desist from broadcasting similar profanities in Hindi8212;so as not to insult the viewer!

ILYASI should know a thing or two about being a celebrity and a villain at the same time. It was just seven years ago, when Ilyasi gatecrashed on television, propelled by a desi version of America8217;s Most Wanted. Sixty-five episodes later, Ilyasi found himself trapped in his own story. With no control over the script, his private life became public, when his wife of seven years, was found dead with stab wounds.

On March 29, 2000, Ilyasi was charged with harassment for dowry, dowry death and suppression of evidence under several sections of the Indian Penal Code. It appeared to have been borrowed straight from his prime time television show8212;a mixture of scandal and celebrity.

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Ilyasi soon became the hunted and minute details of his life were devoured by a public eager to feast on any piece of information that came their way. Caught in a custody battle for his daughter, pages of a diary maintained by his wife, exposed intimate scenes of a married life, gone horribly wrong. Ilyasi spent time in jail in the company of men, he had once hunted down.

But captivity it seems, did not dampen his enthusiasm to carry out a moral purge.

After the success of his most-wanted serials, Ilyasi, it is learnt, is taking his first steps into filmdom. He has almost finished directing his first film, Kamyab Rasta8212;the story of a man fighting against all odds.

He is setting new trends in journalism, where nothing is sacred. And nothing is private. He will continue to pry till there is a law that makes him pause for a while. Till then your private life is his business.