By Noreen Aslam
Bollywood star Asif Basra was found dead at his rented accommodation in Dharamsala’s McLeodganj area. According to sources, he has left no suicide note and police has sent the body for postmortem. The tragic death of Asif Basra has left everyone in the devastating situation and Bollywood has come together to pray for him. The initial investigation says that he was suffering from depression.
Undoubtedly, Asif Basra was a versatile actor and starred in many big projects like Jab We Met, Kai Po Che and Parzania. His recent work was in web series Paatal Lok and Hostages. Asif Basra was a fine artist and he will always be remembered for his work. May his soul rest in peace!
The entire Bollywood industry was still recovering from the mysterious death of Sushant Singh Rajput when a piece of news broke out that another Bollywood actor was found dead at his residence. Bollywood actor Asif Basra (53) was found dead at his private complex in Dharamshala. Going by the reports, SSP Kangra Vimukt Ranjan said, “Film actor Asif Basra was found hanging in a private complex in Dharamshala. The forensic team is at the spot and the police is investigating the matter.”
While most of the news organizations have declared it a suicide, the Police investigating the case are still not able to find the suicide note. The case of Asif resembles the case of Sushant quite a lot as the actor’s death was declared suicide the moment his body was found dead.
Later many theories came along and Sushant’s case was shifted to the CBI. It is also to be noted that there was no suicide note found by the Mumbai Police in Sushant Singh Rajput’s case as well.
Interestingly, Asif worked with Sushant Singh Rajput’s debut movie Kai Po Che!. The connection of Asif with Sushant might raise many eyebrows and justice for Sushant can gain its lost relevance yet again. Right now, the investigation is still going on and the forensic team are trying to gather every evidence possible from the spot of death.
Yesterday Bollywood has lost a fine, senior actor Asif Basra who was found hanging in his Himachal Pradesh residence. Many celebs from Bollywood and TV expressed grief and shock on social media. ETimes spoke to the 2019 ‘Tashkent Files’ director Vivek Agnihotri, sometime back. Asif had an important role in ‘Tashkent Files’ where he shared screen space with Naseeruddin Shah, Mithun Chakraborty and Shweta Basu Prasad.
Vivek said that he was going to cast Basra even in his next, ‘Kashmir Files’. “But destiny had other plans,” Vivek added. Vivek and Asif go back a long way, when Vivek used to direct the nail-biting thriller Saturday ‘Suspense’ on TV and Basra acted in it. “I am in shock and it is yet to sink in that he’s no more. I last met him when we had a party to celebrate the completion of the 100-day run of ‘Tashkent Files’. We had a blast. He was a personal friend.”
Vivek further said that Asif had loved working in ‘Tashkent Files’. “I found him quite fine when he did. ‘Tashkent Files’, he was a bit bitter about Bollywood but then I guess many of us are, even I am,” Vivek added. What exactly was Asif bitter about, we asked? Replied Vivek, “Well, I have nothing sensational to reveal here. We simply used to talk about how we don’t take good actors seriously in our industry. He used to say yahan ya to phir star hota hai ya everybody else hota hai. Supporting actors are not supported. He had issues about that,” and added, “But that’s true. I agreed with him.”
Vivek does, to say, “Stars are allowed to waste money to the tune of 60-70 per cent of a film’s budget. Someone should research this and see- so many film with stars in the lead are so pathetic- no content, star kuch bhi bol raha hai, kuch bhi pehan raha hai. And why is this being tolerated? Because people can be fooled with PR campaigns and absolute lies. I have worked with stars who smoke and drink but they paint an image in public that they are teetotallers. Time is not spent on craft and talent is not respected.
And let me tell you I am not bitter per se. Mere se koi bhi kaam karta hai main wahi baat karta hoon that how we can make our film industry better. So I can’t really say whether Asif was indeed bitter or not, but he wasn’t talking about great experiences in the industry.” Besides ‘Tashkent Files’ which was his last, Asif was seen in many films- ‘Kai Po Che’, ‘Hichki’, ‘Krrish 3’, ‘Jab We Met’ to name just a few, and more recently on the web show.
