Written by Devansh Sharma Mumbai | July 1, 2025 08:06 IST 3 min readAmitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan faced the camera together for the first time in Sarkar.Just a day after the 25th anniversary of Abhishek Bachchan’s 2000 debut film Refugee comes another milestone. On July 1, it’s completion of 20 years since the release of another Abhishek movie. Ram Gopal Varma’s political thriller Sarkar premiered in cinemas on this day back in 2005. On the occasion, Abhishek chats to SCREEN about working with Varma on the film, and facing the camera with his father, legendary actor Amitabh Bachchan, for the first time.It’s 20 years of Bunty Aur Babli and Sarkar, which means 20 years of you working with Amitabh Bachchan. How was it like doing a scene with him for the first time?Sarkar was the first time I faced the camera with my father, although Bunty Aur Babli released first. Right before we left for the outdoor shoot for Bunty Aur Babli in Varanasi, we shot for six days for Sarkar in Mumbai. Facing the camera with him for the first time was terrifying. But I have wonderful memories, especially with Ramu, one of my favourite directors. The way he adapted The Godfather was just so fine-eyed. It’s one of my favourite films.I remember Ramu called me to watch a rough line-up where I watched the first five minutes and I thought I’m done. It was a close-up of my father looking up into the camera from a saucer he’s sipping tea from. No dialogue, nothing, he just looks up. That one shot summed up the character and the power he wields. What a performance! It was a huge learning experience.Another one of your father’s films, which has completed 50 years since its release this month, is Hrishikesh Mukerjee’s Mili, in which your mother Jaya Bachchan played the titular role. Do you have any memories of watching that film?I haven’t seen Mili for a good 10 odd years. I must go revisit it again. When I was a kid, I used to not like watching my mother’s films because I used to find them very sad. I used to watch them with my sister (Shweta Bachchan), who ended up crying and I’d get into trouble because everybody would think I must’ve done something.After I became an actor and revisited a lot of films, I found Mili to be brilliant. It’s unbelievable how the great Hrishikesh Mukherjee would take such a human story and tell it so dramatically without being dramatic. Mom was obviously brilliant, but I thought my father had the more difficult role because he didn’t have any of the crutches that the title role had. Mili is a classic. Wow, 50 years man! Time’s flying.Click here to follow Screen Digital on YouTube and stay updated with the latest from the world of cinema.© IE Online Media Services Pvt LtdAdvertisementOpening balance barely Rs 500; Rs 3.72 crore in, Rs 3.33 crore out, all in a day — no one noticed21 min agoA blue signboard saying “Jeevika Foundation” hung outside the flat till about a year ago, say neighbors near the A Block parking lot of the resettlement colony in East Delhi's Trilokpuri. No one knows who put the board up, or who removed it — the flat has been unoccupied for long, they say. What they also don't know is that this faceless outfit with the missing signboard stands today as a symbol of how leading banks and their officials who are meant to track money flows dropped the ball even as cyber scamsters passed crores of stolen money right under their noses through ghost accounts opened by fictitious outfits,an investigation by The Indian Express has found. Officials at HDFC Bank's Karol Bagh branch in Delhi, where “Jeevika Foundation” opened an account in October 2023, claimed they followed due process, including KYC norms, at the time. But there were no answers to questions on how large sums of money were subsequently transferred through this account without red flags being raised — until the police came knocking. [also_read title = "Read" article_title= "Digital scam trail tracked: Crores move in minutes across banks, state borders; officials watch as same ghost accounts used and reused" id = "10096636" liveblog = "no" ] Consider the numbers that came up in Jeevika's bank statement on just one scam day: * On August 8, 2024, there were 1,960 transactions in the account with Rs 3.72 crore credited and Rs 3.33 crore debited. The opening balance for that day: Rs 556. Police records show this was the day when a 78-year-old retired IAF officer, Biren Yadav, was ensnared in a digital arrest scam and forced to transfer Rs 42.5 lakh via RTGS to the account. In all, records show, the scamsters coerced Yadav into transferring a total of Rs 1.59 crore to suspected “mule accounts” in four banks. Today, the Jeevika “mule account” is at the heart of at least six different state police probes into cases of digital arrest and cyber fraud with a long list of pending claims from victims: Gurugram (Rs 38.3 lakh), Hyderabad (Rs 27.7 lakh), Manipal (Rs 21.7 lakh), Chennai (Rs 39 lakh) and Kolkata (Rs 14 lakh). There could be many more. Says Ranbir Singh, the previous occupant of the Trilokpuri flat who now has an office in the flat one floor above: “First, officials from one bank arrived. Then, a team of Srinagar police came and later, Delhi police. I told them what I am telling you: I have no information about Jeevika.” There are no Registrar of Companies (RoC) records available for the outfit but there is a Facebook account under its name. It lists “Dr Amarendra Jha” as a key functionary. When contacted by The Indian Express over a phone number listed in the Facebook account, a man who identified himself as “Dr Jha” claimed that “Jeevika Foundation” had opened an office in Trilokpuri but was not registered as an NGO and did not open a bank account “due to time constraints”. When contacted by this newspaper again for more details, he denied any link with the Trilokpuri address. Later, he stopped responding to calls and messages. Officials at HDFC's Karol Bagh branch said police teams from two states had contacted them about the account. They did not provide more details, saying the matter was “sub judice”. However, The Indian Express has learnt that the authorised signatory was present during contact-point verification and that a “debit freeze” was imposed by the bank when suspicious withdrawals were noticed — but this was done only when about Rs 38 lakh was left in the account. The Gurugram trail Another scam, where a top advertising executive in Gurugram was forced by digital arrest operators to transfer Rs 5.85 crore in just two days from her HDFC Bank account to the ICICI Bank account of an unemployed 26-year-old man in Jhajjar, is a case in point. The Indian Express reached two HDFC Bank branches in Gurugram — Regent Plaza and City Court — that were used by the victim to transfer the money through RTGS in multiple tranches. “The customer visited the branch personally and did the RTGS payments. There was little we could do to stop it,” said an official at the Regent Plaza branch. “We had asked her the reason for withdrawing such hefty sums but she responded curtly about a medical emergency. We did not ask any further questions,” said an official at the City Court branch. The Indian Express also visited the ICICI Bank branch in Jhajjar where the money was deposited in the account of a man identified as Piyush, an unemployed youth from Subana village — and a “mule” in the chain used by the scammers. “Yes, the receipt of Rs 5.85 crore is an astounding sum for a student residing in a small Haryana village,” said an official at the branch. “But there was no pop-up alert at our end, maybe because Piyush had changed his banking to online mode and could do everything remotely. There was no trigger for us to be alerted. After this case, we received instructions from Delhi and enhanced our due diligence procedures,” the official said. Asked to elaborate on this “enhancement”, the official declined to give specifics. Passing the buck The blame game continued down the scam chain. The management of Sreenivasa Padmavathi Bank in Hyderabad, where 11 mule accounts served as pit stops in the Gurugram scam trail, pointed fingers at Piyush's ICICI Bank branch in Jhajjar from where the money was transferred. “The question to be asked is why did ICICI Bank not get alerted when an account, which had a few thousand rupees, got transfers totaling Rs 5.85 crore which was then immediately withdrawn?’’ asked P Srinivas Kumar, the bank's chairman who is also a lawyer. “On hearing about the Gurugram police probe, we froze all the 11 suspect accounts and terminated the services of the director who had opened many of these accounts,” he said. The director in question, Venkateswaralu Samudrala, has been arrested by the Gurugram police's Special Investigation Team (SIT) tracking the advertising executive's case. And, according to the top officer handling the case, the bank's chairman may also face questions from the SIT. Meanwhile, Gurugram police was informed by the Union Home Ministry's cyber unit that 181 other complaints have also been registered by them for these 11 mule accounts. Responding to a questionnaire from The Indian Express on the responsibilities of institutions in cases of digital arrest, HDFC Bank said it has been raising awareness through focused campaigns, such as Vigil Aunty (a fictional anti-fraud influencer) and mailers, and employees have been sensitised on raising an alarm in case of suspicious behaviour by customers while transferring funds. “There have been multiple cases across India, where the alertness of bank staff has helped save customers from falling prey to fraudsters using this modus operandi. While the entire banking ecosystem and law enforcement agencies are taking steps to create awareness, there are instances where customers feel offended when bank employees enquire about the reasons for transfer of funds that seem of unusual amount(s). Non-engagement by the customer in such an instance is one challenge that banks face,” the bank said. In response to questions on the Jeevika account, HDFC Bank said, “The account in question was opened after following all requisite processes and conducting a thorough due diligence. Since the matter is sub judice we cannot share further details. HDFC Bank remains committed to providing the highest level of customer service and is fully cooperating with the law enforcement agencies in this case.” ICICI Bank said it has implemented “several advisories” issued by the RBI. “We have put in place advanced transaction monitoring systems that generate internal alerts for suspicious activities in accounts. To prevent misuse, the bank swiftly freezes such accounts and reports them to the authorities. We also collaborate closely with the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C). By leveraging the suspect registry -- compiled using data from the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) — we have made significant strides in curbing mule accounts,” the bank said. It added that it regularly communicates “with customers through emails, SMSs and social media campaigns, educating them about various fraud types and providing guidance on preventive measures”. With the speed of technology and the complexity layers of transfers involved, "preventive measures," could hold the key. More so, when based on the evidence so far, victims of digital arrest have little hope — or chance — to recover what they have lost.View all shortsMore EntertainmentAdvertisementTop StoriesMust ReadAdvertisementJul 01: Latest News01Doctor’s Day today | 75% doctors emotionally exhausted due to violence, digital fatigue, unrealistic expectations: Survey02Mithi river desilting scam | Wrongful loss of public money of BMC to which common Mumbaikars give tax: Court03Carlos Alcaraz suffers typical lapses in Wimbledon opener but survives massive Fabio Fognini scare04Maharashtra: Over 40,000 junior college admissions confirmed on first day, 5,497 in Pune district05Pune Municipal Corporation collects 50% property tax, deadline to avail discount extended to July 7Advertisement