Bollywood star who worked with Rishi Kapoor, Shabana Azmi was arrested for trying to enter an ashram, has been missing for 20 years despite Rishi trying to find him

Indian Express

19-06-2025

Bollywood movie stars enjoy the riches and fame that come with their profession but if, unfortunately, their life takes a turn that isn't as glamorous, all of this can turn tragic, and something similar happened with yesteryear star Raj Kiran. Raj is still fondly remembered for his work in films like Karz and Arth, and during the 1980s, he appeared in a bunch of films which helped him get established as the new star on the block. However, life as he knew it, wasn't as kind to him and a few years later, Raj went missing. After many leading roles, Raj started appearing in supporting roles in the early 1990s, before he disappeared from the films. After being locked up in Bengaluru Central Jail for nearly a month in 1996, he appeared in some other films as well. It was, perhaps, during this time that director Mahesh Bhatt met him at a mental health facility, and a few years later, Raj went missing, and even his family couldn't find him. To date, there is no trace of Raj and no one knows if he is alive or dead.
Raj Kiran made his debut with the 1975 film Kaagaz Ki Nao, and was soon seen in the film Kissa Kursi Ka, a political satire which was banned during the Emergency. It was his role in the 1980 film Karz, starring Rishi Kapoor, that Raj stepped into the spotlight. He had a supporting role in the film but the success of Subhash Ghai's film did wonders for him as well, and soon he started landing major roles. In 1982, he scored another win when he appeared in Mahesh Bhatt's Arth as the man who is ready to support the woman he loves, even if she doesn't choose him. After this too, Raj appeared in a plethora of films across the decade but somewhere in the mid 1990s, he took a break from the movies.
In 1996, a crime reporter found him at Bengaluru Central Jail where he was imprisoned for trespassing the Puttaparthi Sai Baba Ashram, and it appeared that his family members didn't even know about it. As per Deccan Herald, he hired a tractor and a ladder and tried to break into the ashram at night. A few days after the news was reported, his father bailed him out. The following year, in 1997, Raj gave an interview to Cineblitz, where he said that the matter was 'blown out of proportion.' 'The trauma that I faced when I was put in jail, is indescribable. You can never understand the fear one feels, when you are told that you cannot be bailed out. I spent 34 days in jail and sitting there, I was not sure if I would ever be free. That is a very scary feeling,' he said.
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At the time, it was said that Raj had spent some time in America with his brother Govind, and was planning to go back. But, it was somewhere after this, perhaps, that director Mahesh Bhatt, who worked with Raj in Arth, met the actor at a mental health facility in Byculla, Mumbai. Bhatt, in a 2011 chat with Rediff, shared that he met Raj 'many years ago when he was in the psychiatric ward of Masina Hospital. He was not the Raj Kiran I had interacted with. This was a sombre-looking, depressed individual and with great difficulty he communicated with me. There was no joie de vivre, no energy that he exuded every time he met us; his friends, that is.' Mahesh said that after Raj came back from the hospital, he got in touch with the director. 'We tried to give him some work, a role here and there but once the word gets around that you are mentally unstable, nobody wants to touch you with a barge pole,' Bhatt said and shared that it was after this, that Raj moved to the US and started staying with his brother Govind.
After his move to the US, Raj stayed with his family for some time but one day, he went missing. After reports surfaced in 2011 that he was in a mental health facility in Atlanta, as actor Rishi Kapoor had found out, his daughter Rishika came forth and explained that this wasn't the case, and that he was still missing. 'He is not in Atlanta. We have been looking for him for over eight years. We have involved the New York police and hired private detectives to find him. But he's not been found,' she told Mid-day.
Rishika shared that he was last seen in new York and mentioned that it was 'very out of character for him to not inform us about his whereabouts.' She further added, 'He was the most loving father. Yes, he suffered from a bit of mental illness before he disappeared. We wanted to deal with this on our own, but those false reports forced me to come out in the open. I think this is totally unfair on my mother.'
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At the time, Rishi told Subhash K Jha in an interview that he had been in touch with Raj's brother Govind and it was Govind who told him that Raj was at a mental health facility in Atlanta. 'I was so relieved when Govind told me Raj was alive. But he was confined to an institution in Atlanta due to health problems.' In the same interview, Rishi shared that as per Govind, Raj was looking after his own treatment by working at the institution. Rishi shared that Raj's family members were not in touch with him anymore and as much as he tried to find him, he couldn't get in touch with the actor. Rishi was told that since Raj had invested well, he wasn't facing any financial difficulty.
In 2011, actor Deepti Naval, who also worked with Raj in the film, Hip Hip Hurray, put up a Facebook post urging people to look for Raj as she had heard that he was last spotted driving a cab on the streets of New York.
It's been years since anyone heard from the actor. Even by his daughter's admission in 2011, where she confessed to last seeing him in 2003, it has been over 20 years since anyone heard about his whereabouts.