Scandal of Bollywood star in hit-and-run case grows

Protesters are expected to gather today outside Indian cinemas showing films featuring the actor Salman Khan, who has become the unwilling star of one of the nastier scandals to uncoil from the gilded but murky world of Bollywood.

The 36-year-old Mr Khan has made daily front-page news in India since his Toyota Land Cruiser bounced onto a pavement as he was heading home from a party and careered into a huddle of labourers sleeping outside. One man was killed; four injured.

India's gargantuan film industry regularly throws up lurid stories of murder, extortion and mob connections but these allegations have attracted particular attention, not least because the two mainplayers – the alleged killer and the victim – come from the extremes of Indian society.

Mr Khan's fame – the result of at least 30 movies, including some major hits – has earned him a place among the super-rich. He boasts to interviewers about how he jets first-class to London to stock up his wardrobe with the latest from Armani and Versace. However, he is better known to his world-wide internet fan club for his muscle-bound (and carefully shaved) bare chest, tight jeans and for giving off the appropriately pampered and sulky air of a brooding action hero.

Nooru Bahra – the 38-year-old man who died under the wheels of Mr Khan's Toyota just before 3am on Saturday – might as well have come from another planet. He is one of a host of labourers drawn from the countryside to the big city in the hope of earning enough to feed their families, a man who could reasonably expect to end his days in abject and anonymous poverty, without ever encountering a film star.

He worked in a sweltering bakery in Mumbai (Bombay), earning the equivalent of £1.80 a day. Fatally, as it turned out, he slept on the street at night because of the steamy night-time temperatures indoors.

Practically every aspect of the case has spawned dispute and controversy, so much so that civil rights activists and others are beginning to jump on the bandwagon.

The local police have drawn severe criticism for allowing the actor to be bailed for a mere 950 rupees (£13) despite leaving the scene of the crash and not surrendering himself until eight hours later. His critics have pointed out that the country's jails are full of people – usually poor – unable to make bail payments, despite facing far lesser allegations.

Activists with the ruling BJP party's youth wing have weighed in. They told the Calcutta-based Telegraph newspaper that they would, from today, demonstrate outside cinemas in Mumbai showing Salman Khan films to demand his immediate arrest.

The outcry has led authorities in the state of Maharashtra, which includes Mumbai, to order an inquiry into the police handling of the affair. Although reportedly taken some 10 hours after the crash, blood samples have, according to police, confirmed that Mr Khan had been drinking.

The police say he was at the wheel. His lawyers deny it, saying the vehicle was being driven by a bodyguard. But the tireless Indian press has not been convinced. Accounts – unproven, it must be stressed – have emerged alleging murky attempts to bribe and bully witnesses.

Mr Khan is not helped by his curriculum vitae, which established him as one of Bollywood's bad boys some time ago. He is already fighting criminal charges in Rajasthan for allegedly poaching a protected black buck deer in a wildlife sanctuary. Two years ago, Bollywood – and its feral band of scribes – was abuzz over unproven allegations that he had mafia ties, after the Mumbai police interviewed him for six hours on the topic.

But this case has touched a nerve for another reason. The newspapers have had a particularly acidic tone – Mr Khan has been branded as "spoilt" and "arrogant" – which seemed to arise from a general feeling that India's celebrities, police and politicians live by different laws, and that India is growing tired of it.