Few stories blur the line between reel and real quite like the one behind Dhurandhar, the Aditya Dhar film in which Sanjay Dutt portrays Chaudhary Aslam Khan – one of Karachi’s most feared and celebrated police officers. The casting seemed like a natural fit. What most people didn’t know was just how deep the connection really ran.
According to LiveMint, Chaudhary Aslam Khan joined the Sindh Police in 1984 and spent nearly three decades dismantling the most dangerous criminal and militant outfits in Karachi – from TTP factions and MQM splinter groups to the BLA and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
He survived nine assassination attempts before a Taliban car bombing on the Lyari Expressway finally claimed his life in January 2014 as per several news outlets at the time such as BBC and NBC. The legend was already written. What remained hidden was the Sanjay Dutt chapter within it.
The nickname that gave it away
The reveal came on The Ranveer Show, where former journalist and Pakistan underworld researcher Anirudhya Mitra let slip a detail that reframed everything. “Log bolte tha he was a Taliban hunter… ek naam tha yaaron ka yaar… ek naam tha Baba Cop,” Mitra said. “Baba Cop kyun naam tha kyunki woh Sanjay Dutt ke bahut bade fan the Khalnayak dekhne ke baad – which is an irony.”
In other words, the people around the legendary policeman called him Baba Cop because of his admiration for Sanju Baba – and that admiration had roots going back to the 1990s when Khan first watched Dutt-starrer Khalnayak.
Mitra also noted that a project based on Aslam’s life had earlier been made in Pakistan, but seeing Sanjay step into his shoes added a unique emotional layer – almost like a full-circle moment with destiny finally completing a loop.
A legacy With one reservation
Aslam’s widow Noreen confirmed the admiration on the Dialogue Pakistan podcast. “Chaudhry liked Sanjay Dutt,” she said, “and I am sure he will do justice to the role.” As per Noreen, her husband had even predicted that films would one day be made about him – a man so certain of the scale of his own story that he’d already imagined it on screen, and already chosen his leading man.
She embraced the film as a tribute, but not without one objection. As per her statements, a section of the trailer described Aslam as the child of a devil and a djinn – imagery she found incredibly disrespectful to her late husband and his mother. One small protest against an otherwise extraordinary full-circle tribute to a man who, it turns out, saw all of this coming.