MUMBAI :To create a successful project, actors, directors, producers, and everyone else works together as a team.
Among all of these, casting directors are essential to develop new talent and identifying the right actor for a part.
People come to this industry with hopes of achieving success, fulfilling their dreams, acting, writing, direct in stories, and becoming a part of this entertainment industry.
But what happens, when someone plays with the vulnerability of these young artists’ dreams? These actors come to the industry with hope in their pockets and that hope is to get a chance to be part of popular shows, on the screens, and the magic.
These new actors don’t know the ins and out’s of this industry, who to call, and how they can afford that one chance, so they do what anybody new does, they google and they believe, they believe every person who can get them closer to their dreams.
But so most often than not, these dream makers, turn out to be frauds, who play with the emotion, stability, and circumstances of anybody willing to believe them.
Recently, TellyChakkar posted an article, where we reported about Uorfi Javed warning people of a man name Shadman Khan, who was allegedly posing as her manager and stifling money out of people’s pockets.
Well, since that post we have been contacted by many upcoming and budding actors, who have had similar or worse experiences with Shadman Khan.
But who is this man? Well, According to his IMDB profile (which anyone can create), and we quote, “Shadman khan owns casting agency:- Shadman khan casting agency He has been into casting for the last 4 yrs. Shadman was Associated with many production houses like Balaji Telefilms, Rashmi Sharma, Alchemy production, etc. He has Cast for various genres from daily soaps, Web series, episodic shows & many commercial and digital advertisements.”
And if you take one look at his Instagram profile, you would think that the man is very legit and has helped so many people reach for the stars.
But not according to the people who reached out to us and who have shown us enough proof, which compelled us to launch a further deep dive into the escapades of this man.
Allisha Singh, came to this industry to be an actor and got in touch with Shadman Khan because he runs a casting agency. However, her hopes and dreams are still lying somewhere outside the film city, where Shadman made her and a friend of hers wait for almost 12 hours in hopes of an agreement to star in a show with two leading men of the industry and for a network that fulfills dreams.
According to Allisha, Shadman promised her that she would be cast for Beyond Dreams Productions, titled Ghayal. He told her to give him different sums of money, one for Instagram verification and the whole social media hoopla and some as fees and percentages but in total Rs. 3.5 Lakhs, as Allisha claims.
But after taking the money, Shadman started dodging her he started making up stories that sometimes he was traveling, sometimes the paperwork was stuck and sometimes he would call them to set only to not show up.
But you would think, why would anyone give any sort of money without proof, well here comes the long con, he claimed to be a Viacom 18 employee doing the bidding and even made up stories about a network's casts for the show.
Disclaimer, the network is never responsible for casting, it is the sole call of the production house itself.
Shadman had a Viacom 18 ID. He sent Alisha emails from Viacom and even went to the degree of sending an employment agreement with Viacom’s logo on it.
All of which is good enough to convince a person to believe in his scheme. When chased about the opportunity, Shadman would flake on them. In two particular incidents, Allisha’s world came crumbling down, one when she reached Beyond Dreams Productions office and the other when she reached the Viacom office.
Allisha described the incident at Beyond Dreams and said, “Anytime I would call him, he could just twist the matter, two times he made us wait on the road near the Beyond Dreams Office and he never showed up and I was frustrated so, I went to the office myself and when I told them the incident, the casting director told me that the cast of the show was already locked and that the show had already begun shooting and the biggest shock of all, they did not know who Shadman was. I got the biggest shock of my life, I started crying, I was having a panic attack, and did not know what to do, the casting director there told us to file an official complaint as well”.
The other alleged incident was when she reached the Viacom 18 office, where when she showed the picture of Shadman’s Id to the officials they told her that the ID was fake and that their IDs looked very different. Since then Allisha has called and texted him and even threatened that she will report him to the police, to which he says that he will return the money and there is nothing to worry about.
When TellyChakkar contacted him he told us that he had returned the money to whoever was claiming to be conned by him, we never disclosed the name to him. And he made up a few stories even to us.
Another incident in which the victim wishes to remain anonymous stated “In 2020 I worked in TVC digital AD, but he never gave me pay for that, he keeps on procrastinating and keeps on making excuses he cheated me on that payment, so I blocked him and never worked with him until now”
TellyChakkar reached out to the production house, Beyond Dreams Productions, where the casting director of the production house referred us to a public announcement they had made on Instagram, check it out:
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The Casting director Mr. Aamir Sheikh also told us, that they had urged the bereaved to file an official complaint and they confirmed to us, sayings that “ Beyond Dreams Productions has never been associated with the aforementioned man and we strongly condemn such behavior”.
TellyChakkar also reached out to the officials at Viacom 18 to make them aware of such instances and to confirm whether or not Shadman Khan has ever been associated with them. In response to this Viacom18 spokesperson said, "We at Viacom18 strongly condemn such fraudulent behavior and will actively cooperate with any police action taken on this. The man in question is not an employee or personnel of our organization. Furthermore, no employee of Viacom18 is authorized to solicit payment for any opportunity at the organization. We would advise all aspirants to be vigilant against such scams."
Shadman has also tried to twist and manipulate the narrative against TellyChakkar when the victims contacted him about the article, making false claims that all of this is just a publicity stunt orchestrated by him.
The actions and decisions of one such man can affect so many people who are just trying to get a chance to be an actor and an artist.
**Allisha provided us with the screenshots and images from the text and email chains, which we are attaching here with the consent herself.
**TellyChakkar does not take any responsibility for the authenticity of the screenshots, and we have not edited or done anything to them, they have been shared as they were provided to us.**
Stay tuned toTellyChakkar for more updates and we urge you to stay aware and stay safe.
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