FATAL ATTRACTION: Sharma (above) and Mahira teamed up with gangsters

Shah Rukh was not willing to come so I gave him two tight slaps and handed him the mobile. Bhai (Abu Salem) told him from Dubai to have dinner with my family and then we went out." This is not a line from the film Company, only a story that Siraj Khan used to regale his female friends with. One of them, Mahira Khan, was fascinated by his "Bollywood" tales. Natural for someone who ran an events management firm in Bhopal that organised star shows and had worked with Shah Rukh Khan's company Dreamz Unlimited.

The man who boasted about his underworld links also moonlighted for the Intelligence Bureau. Siraj is now on the run with Dubai-based don Salem's hitmen on his heels. More interestingly, Mahira's name is on a list recovered by the police from the contract killers who shot at a close associate of Siraj. Mahira claims Siraj was only an acquaintance. "I met him through a senior police official so I thought it was pretty safe,'' she says. However, Superintendent of Police A.P. Singh claims that Mahira knew about Siraj's antecedents and yet associated with him. What puzzles the police is why an educated woman from a decent family should befriend a dubious character like Siraj.

DANGEROUS LIAISON: Bedi gave up films for Salem's company

Is Mahira a victim of the Bonnie and Clyde syndrome: the fatal attraction that some women have for gangsters? And why does Bhopal figure so prominently in these cases. Take Salem and Monica Bedi. A budding starlet, Bedi chose to give it all up for Salem and came to Bhopal posing as Fauzia to obtain a passport.

Archana Sharma is another. Daughter of a security supervisor in Ujjain, she worked as a police constable, receptionist, and as a journalist before leaving for Dubai with Baba Sehgal's dance troupe. There a businessman introduced her to the underworld and she ended up as Goga's mistress. When Goga was bumped off by Dawood Ibrahim's younger brother Anees, she teamed up with Shrivastava. Her first operation as a live bait was the kidnapping of Delhi industrialist R.D. Vyas from whom Rs 4 crore was extorted. She was arrested with Shrivastava but she jumped bail and reached Indore where she was involved in another extortion case. Sharma remains at large.

Sadhna Singh, mother of two and a postgraduate, has a similar tale. Last month when the Bhopal Police raided a house in the Old City area in pursuit of dreaded criminal Pushpendra Jat, they found Singh-who had eloped with him-along with more than 100 rounds of AK-47 ammunition. She is in police custody.

More such "Company Girls" have moved to the Chambal ravines. They include Lovely Pandey who lives with dacoit Nirbhay Singh Gujjar, and Kusuma Nain, dacoit Phakkad's paramour. Seema Parihar, Bina Dixit, Mala Tiwari, Munni Devi and Krishna are also linked to various gang members. "Most of these women are mistresses. They are used and abused by gang members,'' says V.K. Pawar, ig (Chambal).

That, however, doesn't explain why conservative Bhopal is the favoured haunt of these danger-courting women.

-Neeraj Mishra