Recently, the death anniversary of great devotional singer Gulshan Kumar passed. He died on August 12, 1997. He was born on May 5, 1951. His full name was Gulshan Kumar Dua. He had given a new direction to the music. After a struggling life, he achieved a special place with his passion for music. In the early days, he used to run a juice shop with his father at Daryaganj Market. Later, he became the owner of India’s biggest music company T-Series. He founded T-Series in the 1980s and established it as a leading record label in the 1990s.

During the life of Gulshan Kumar, T-Series emerged as one of the top music labels in India. It continues to be a major label.

Apart from emerging a founder of T-series and uber singing, he is also known for his assassination. He was shot dead outside the Jeeteshwar Mahadev Mandir, that he used to attend daily in Jeet Nagar, Andheri West suburb of Mumbai, on 12 August 1997. He was shot 16 times.

The reason behind his killing was refused to pay the extortion money that was about Rs 10 crore to the underworld. On the ill-fated day of his killing, his bodyguard was sick. While returning from the temple he was confronted by one of the assassins ( Rauf and Abdul Rashid) who said: “Bahut puja kar li, ab upar ja ke karna (you have done enough puja, now do it up there).”

Initially, Kumar survived and sought shelter in nearby huts, but residents shut their doors. His driver Suraj was shot in both legs as he tried to shelter Kumar. Mumbai underworld organization called D-Company was behind his killing. Abu Salem and Dawood Ibrahim planned Gulshan Kumar’s murder. Bollywood music composers Nadeem-Shravan’s name was also came to the light that they had paid Abu Salem and Dawood Ibrahim for the murder due to a personal dispute and fled the country after the murder.

After killing Gulshan Kumar, the shooter Abdul Rauf Merchant (known as “Raja”) kept his phone on for 10 to 15 minutes so that Abu Salem could hear the screams of Gulshan Kumar. Currently, he is behind the bars.