Actor Sajid Khan, Mehboob Khan’s son, who played the younger version of Sunil Dutt’s character “Birju” in ‘Mother India’ passed away on December 22, 2023. He acted in films such as “Son of India”, “Zindagi aur Toofan”, “Do Nambar Ke Amir” to name a few. He also acted in international projects such as “Maya” and “The Singing Filipina”. Khan was in his early 70s. His only son Sameer broke the news of his demise. He worked on several romcoms in his time. The actor was laid to rest at the Kayamkulam Town Juma Masjid in Kerala’s Alappuzha district.
However, many mistook the actor for filmmaker Sajid Khan, and the news of him being dead spread on the internet. People started pouring condolences to Sajid Khan on the internet. The filmmaker got bombarded with messages and calls asking if he was alive. Sajid Khan took a hilarious approach to clarifying this perplexity by posting a comedy video on his Instagram handle.
This confusion led the “Houseful” director to take to social media to clarify that he was indeed alive and well. He posted a comical video saying “Main nahi mara…”. He started the video comically by saying “Main bhooth hun…mujhe shanti mile…nahi mil rhi kaise milegi? Main toh zinda hoon”. He clarified that the actor who died was Mehboob Khan’s son who was born in 1951 while he was born 20 years later. He concluded the video by saying that he would keep entertaining us for a long time and may the late actor rest in peace. He captioned the video “R.i.p sajid khan (1951-2023)…not me as reported with my pic by some media people…”. This is a very good example of how much fake news can easily spread on the internet today with the power of social media. It is both funny and worrisome sometimes that the power of social media can even fake your death!
Here is the video posted by the filmmaker
On the work front, he is directing “100%” with John Abraham, Ritesh Deshmukh, Nora Fatehi, and Shehnaaz Gill in the leading roles. It is a story of “love, marriage, family and spies”, and is produced by T-series head Bhushan Kumar and Amar Butala. 100% will be released next year. Khan, known for films such as “Heyy Baby” and two “Housefull” movies, last directed 2014’s “Humshakals”.
By: Gursharan Kaur Sanhotra