Being Salman under siege: Cops, guards, push-ups

Angry Young Men, an Amazon mini-series about Salim-Javed's creative partnership which released in August features a black and white photograph of the two young writers, then in their prime, sitting and brainstorming on a parapet at the Bandstand at Bandra.

- Meena Iyer and Manish Kumar Pathak

Behind them stretches the Arabian Sea, and facing them stands an apartment building called Galaxy.

Salim Khan and his family that includes his superstar son Salman Khan, inhabited this expanse for 50 years. But that expanse has shrunk drastically now.

After the killing of Baba Siddique- a politician who was Salman Khan's friend and troubleshooter - and a spate of threats to the actor from alleged members of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, the 88-year-old Salim Khan was told by Mumbai police to stop his daily constitutional on Bandstand. Instead, a group of five Bandra residents who have walked with him every morning for years has been vetted and given security clearance to walk with him inside the perimeter of Galaxy Apartments.

In Hyderabad, the Falaknuma Palace has been barricaded like a fortress. Salman Khan is shooting there for Sajid Nadiadwala's film Sikander, a VFX-heavy Bahubali-esque action film to be released on Eid next year. On set, a 70-member strong security team ringfences the actor on the shooting floor. After motorcycle-borne men opened fire at Galaxy Apartments this April, the Maharashtra government which had already given Salman Khan Y+ security comprising 10 armed policemen and specially-trained commandos, added four police escort cars. Salman too beefed up his personal security team to 12 headed by his bodyguard of long standing, Shera. When his name cropped up as the alleged reason for Siddique's killing, the son of a top industrialist lent Salman a team of 25 elite guards trained in Israel. Adding to this posse is the security brought in by the producer Nadiadwala and the security provided by Falaknuma which has been put out of bounds for other guests while the film shoot is on.